Natural hazard

From caves explorer to landslides scientist: Fausto Guzzetti 2021 Soloviev Medal

Luigi Lombardo March 8, 2021

The photograph shows a rockfall that occurred near Valtopina, Umbria, Central Italy, on an unknown date. Photo Credit: Fausto Guzzetti (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

Dr Fausto Guzzetti, current Research Director of the National Research Council (CNR) in Italy, has been awarded the 2021 Sergey Soloviev Medal for “his fundamental contributions to the field of natural hazards and his remarkable efforts to link the scientific community and civil protection authorities to mitigate risk for exposed populations”. From his passion for mountains and caves and his “hope ...[Read More]

2020: The escalation of extreme rainfall events in Brazil

Paulo Hader February 22, 2021

Figure 1. A localized typical summer rainfall near the Serra do Mar in the region of Baixada Santista. Photo credit: Marcelo Fischer Gramani, with permission.

In summer 2020, extreme rainfall events dumped up to 320 mm of rain in a single day in the Baixada Santista metropolitan region, São Paulo state, breaking Brazil’s record for the biggest rainfall in a single event and demonstrating one of the greatest threats of climate change. The damage caused by the associated landslides led to dozens of fatalities and hundreds of homeless people, as well ...[Read More]

Advances in earthquakes forecasting pass through machine learning

Gabriele Amato January 25, 2021

image edited from https://www.information-age.com/how-kubernetes-extends-machine-learning-ml-123492360/

In today’s interview, we meet Dr Fabio Corbi, a researcher at IGAG-CNR, the Institute of Environmental Geology and Geoengineering of the Italian National Research Council. Fabio has experience in analogue modelling of megathrust earthquakes and he is currently exploring the potentiality of machine learning in this research field. Hi Fabio, would you briefly tell us about you and your career? ...[Read More]

Climate Change: is Viticulture under threat?

Paolo Tarolli December 21, 2020

Figure 1 - Supercell reaching Soave hills, north-eastern Italy. (Photo credit: Elizabeth Zanella, Coffele Estate Wine Farm)

In the afternoon of August 29, 2020, an intense supercell, which is a thunderstorm characterized by the presence of a deep, persistently rotating updraft, affected the province of Verona in the north of Italy (Figure 1). It was not the first event of this kind; several other events, including tornado episodes, had already occurred during summer 2020. Here the video of the downburst recorded during ...[Read More]