Integration of technological development and civil protection activities during a landslide emergency phase

Italy’s national territory is exposed to a broader range of natural hazards, including landslides, that cause every year fatalities and a large economic damage. The vulnerability of its population and built environment is often severe and has in some cases been exacerbated by human activities. In this perspective, within the National Civil Protection Service (Law 225/95), the Department of Civil Protection (DPC) operates according to the following lines: prevention, forecast and assessment, early warning and alerting, emergency response and recovery from emergency. With regard to deferred-time activities, DPC provides strong support to the knowledge application activities concerning landslide risk through a network of Competence Centres (Centres for technological and scientific services). Moreover, DPC daily supports research efforts on the assessment of vulnerability and exposure of population, buildings and critical infrastructures to the risks associated with this risk. When operating in real-time and in particular in emergency phase, all of these actions need a different approach. As a matter of fact, it’s necessary a rapid acquisition and transfer of scientific information in order to provide a support system to decision makers for Civil Protection Authorities. The real operative case of the Montaguto landslide (Campania region, Italy) here is presented. The Montaguto landslide is 3,000 m long, with an estimated volume of 6,000,000 m3 and a sliding surface from 5 to 30 m dept. On March 2010 a re-activation event occurred and the railway line and the state route were involved and covered by almost 450,000 m3 of debris. A real-time monitoring system was performed by the Competence Centres (Ground Based InSAR by the University of Firenze – Department of Earth Science and a robotic survey station by the Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection – National Research Council) as support to the decisional and operative activities of DPC. Before installing the instruments, a time-series analysis of Persistent Scatterers InSAR data was performed to evaluate the stability condition of the detected areas. The real-time monitoring system was devoted to implement an early warning system during the emergency phase, to plan the stabilization measures and to evaluate the effects of the structural interventions. The issues of the operative case here proposed have shown that an integrated approach, both scientific than operative, is a valuable support for the decisional activities of Civil Protection during an emergency phase.