Natural Hazards

From Seismic Signals to Safer Trains: Italy’s First Earthquake Early Warning System for High-Speed Railways

Aldo Zollo and Simona Colombelli March 16, 2026

Image generated using ChatGPT 5.4

Earthquakes remain among the most disruptive natural hazards worldwide, capable of causing sudden loss of life, severe economic damage, and long-lasting societal impacts. One of the most effective tools developed in recent decades to mitigate these effects is Earthquake Early Warning (EEW), a real-time monitoring strategy that exploits a fundamental physical property of earthquakes: seismic waves ...[Read More]

Same hills, different rules: why urban and rural landslides should not be considered together?

Zakaria Matougui February 20, 2026

Rock Fall at Hammam Melouane, Algeria (image credit: Yasmina Bouderba, distributed via imaggeo)

Cities are expanding faster than ever, often onto steep and unstable terrain. As urban areas grow, landslides increasingly threaten homes, roads, and critical infrastructure. To manage this risk, scientists produce landslide susceptibility maps, which estimate where landslides are most likely to occur. These maps are widely used by planners and decision-makers. But there is a quiet assumption buil ...[Read More]

Extreme hourly rainfall is increasing in Italy: insights from high-resolution climate reanalysis

Francesco Cavalleri February 2, 2026

Image generated using ChatGPT (AI-generated image).

Intense rainfall lasting only a few hours is often enough to trigger natural hazards such as flash floods and landslides, leading to severe damage to infrastructure. These short-lived events are among the most dangerous natural hazards in the Mediterranean region, yet they are also among the hardest to study. Their small spatial scale and brief duration mean that they are often missed or underesti ...[Read More]

Hunting for historical Adriatic meteotsunamis

Iva Međugorac, Jadranka Šepić and Iva Vrkić Seidl January 5, 2026

Image by Vjeko Međugorac

Before modern instruments, our only clues about past sea events came from written records and folklore. Along the eastern Adriatic coast, stories of sudden floods and “tidal waves” (locally called šćiga) have been passed down for generations. These waves, described as rapid rises and falls of the sea that could flood or empty harbours within minutes, were carved into Adriatic coastal life as rare ...[Read More]