Drought Situation

In Italian Only

Secondo i dati Copernicus, a livello globale, anche Aprile 2024 è stato il più caldo registrato, con un’anomalia di +1,58°C rispetto al periodo preindustriale 1850-1900 e di 0,67°C rispetto all’ultimo trentennio di riferimento 1991-2020. A livello europeo questo è stato il secondo Aprile più caldo, nonostante alcune zone abbiano fatto registrare temperature decisamente inferiori alla media, come in Scandinavia, o giorni con gelate, soprattutto sul finire del mese. Le piogge sono state superiori alla media sull’Europa occidentale, nord-orientale e nord-occidentale. Inferiori alla norma su diverse zone dell’Europa meridionale, Balcani occidentali, Romania e Bulgaria. Rispetto agli ultimi 24 mesi, la siccità interessa porzioni di territorio più o meno estesi di diversi Paesi europei, in particolare Spagna e settore orientale (vedi mappa).
  • grandi laghi del nord Italia, al 7 Maggio, mostrano tutti valori al di sopra della media di riempimento rispetto al massimo valore d’invaso disponibile (volume è compreso tra il limite minimo e il limite massimo dell’attività di regolazione delle acque). In Sicilia, al contrario, ad Aprile il riempimento medio rispetto alla capacità totale degli invasi era intorno al 30%, con i valori più alti al 65% e i più bassi al 4% (dati Regione Sicilia).
  • La produzione di energia idroelettrica fra il 22 e il 29 Aprile nelle regioni settentrionali della penisola era in media rispetto ai valori registrati dal 2016, mentre in Sicilia, per lo stesso periodo, si è raggiunto il minimo, con valori equiparabili al periodo dell’anno di minore produzione.
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Drought WebGIS

A WebGIS application based on open source solutions customized to integrate different datasets and share maps and graphs of drought indices with researchers, decision-makers and other stakeholders. Different functions allow to select sections of territory or visualize the trend of the indices in a specific pixel. Maps and graphs can also be downloaded in png format.

Please Note: Due to the size of the images, it is possible to download sections of the vegetation indices smaller than the whole geographic window.

Please Note: due to problems concerning the Terra MODIS satellite, the TCI and VHI indices are available until the 9th of November 2022. They will be replaced soon with new products.

Other Services

Open data

Through CKAN and GeoServer, a complete catalog to publish data and metadata in several formats and standard protocols. Spatial data can be integrated and reused by any third-party client applications.

API REstful

The service allows the integration of any client application data from the Drought Observatory Spatial Data Infrastructure. The RESTful APIs developed are available on the GitHub platform.​

The drought is a complex phenomenon

The complexity of the drought phenomenon requires the availability of a system as comprehensive and integrated as possible to respond to the different users requests.

The challenge
Increasing environmental resilience

Heat waves and droughts have important and increasing repercussions on physical, chemical and biological systems, and on some socio-economical aspects such as health, agriculture, natural ecosystems and tourism. One of the main challenge to cope with drought is to reduce the temporal gap between the onset and development of a dry period, and the response in managing drought-related emergencies.

A Scientific Proactive approach
Technical support and timely information

Although these extreme events require effective actions, policymakers and water users often show low preparedness because of the lack of a proactive approach consisting of monitoring and forecasting activities, mitigation measures and public education.

A frequent Phenomenon

After flooding, it is the second natural disaster that affects the population.

Long term impact

The impact on the environment and human activities can show up late and persist even after the end of the drought event.

HIGH VARIABILITY

Its intensity and spatial extent are extremely variable.

A CREEPING PHENOMENON

With respect to other natural extreme events, drought is characterised by a slow and often difficult to define onset and a long-lasting evolution.

Drought Observatory: the reason why

Drought monitoring supports a better resilience to reduce the impacts of drought events

Drought monitoring and forecasting system

Institute of BioEconomy of the National Research Council (IBE-CNR) created a system to provide a semi-automatic, detailed, timely and comprehensive operational service. This service, initially developed for Tuscany Region, supports decision makers, water authorities, researchers and general stakeholders.

Integration of ground-based and satellite data

Meteorological stations network, satellite images and models are integrated through an open source and interoperable SDI (Spatial Data Infrastructure) based on PostgreSQL/PostGIS to produce vegetation and precipitation indices to follow the occurrence and evolution of a drought event.

The Indices: Drought occurrences and trends

The system is based on a monitoring component and on a forecasting ones. It uses two type of indices:

  • direct climate-based indices.
  • indirect vegetation-based indices

A continuous Work-in-Progress

Spatial Data Infrastructure

New technical improvements in the ICT infrastructure, coupled with scientific advances, allow a timely, ready-to-use and users-specific upgrading of the early warning communication.

SOA | OGC | PostgreSQL

A Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) based on Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards. Database-centred architecture, with PostgreSQL DataBase Management System.

Innovative Approach

The geographic data flows (from the download of remote sensing and climatic data to the storage of final indices) and all the related geoprocessing functions are integrated in a single environment.

Advanced Statistical Procedures

The integration of the PL/R (R Procedural Language) wrapper into the procedural language of PostgreSQL (PL/pgSQL) allowed the creation of advanced statistical procedures using R engine.