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Ercolani, Emanuela
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Ercolani, Emanuela
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emanuela.ercolani@ingv.it
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staff
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36954908600
45 results
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- PublicationOpen AccessComunicare ed educare al rischio, le strade possibili(2022-08)
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; We present here the results of a five-years-long earthquake educational project aiming to commemorate the hundredth anniversaries of five large Northern Apennines earthquakes occurred between 1916 and 1920 in the areas of: Rimini (1916, Mw 6.1), Valtiberina (1917, Mw 5.9), Romagna Apennines (1918, Mw 5.9), Mugello (1919, Mw 6.3) and Garfagnana (1920, Mw 6.5) earthquakes. We saw these anniversaries as the occasion for leading the Northern Apennines people to rediscover their past, in a positive way, and to improve their awareness of the earthquake as a natural feature of the regions in which they live. The activities that we planned for schools students encouraged them to go hunting for traces of the earthquakes of one hundred years ago in their home towns and to rediscover the memories and traditions of their communities. Together with their teachers, we also led the teenagers to find creative ways to involve the grownups in the process of discovery and knowledge. The Project had to cope with two emergencies: the great Central Italy earthquake of 2016-2017 and the Covid-19 epidemic. However, these stumbling blocks did not deter teachers and students from taking part in the process actively and even enthusiastically. Their families and communities were actively involved too. This experience taught us some valuable lessons. First of all, we learned to adapt the project, as we had conceived it at the start, to a wide gamma of social and cultural contexts. Not all the involved communities were equally aware of the level of seismic risk they are exposed to. On the affluent Adriatic coast, where tourism is the main source of income, past earthquakes are something best forgotten, by citizens and administrators alike. On the contrary, in the poorer inland mountain areas (Forlivese Apennines, Mugello, Garfagnana and Lunigiana) a more down-to-earth attitude prevails: earthquakes are looked upon as something that can and does happen and people are quick to grasp how important it is to contribute to initiatives whose aim is reducing seismic risk. Thus, we had to adapt our approach to the different contexts, modifying each time the activities we proposed to the schools with the aim of obtain the best possible results from each situation. Presentiamo i risultati di un progetto di educazione al rischio sismico attivato in occasione dei centenari di cinque terremoti storici che hanno colpito l’Appennino settentrionale tra gli anni 1916 e 1920 e precisamente i terremoti di Rimini 1916 (Mw 6.1), Valtiberina 1917 (Mw 5.9), Appennino romagnolo 1918 (Mw 5.9), Mugello 1919 (Mw 6.3) e Garfagnana 1920 (Mw 6.5). Abbiamo pensato di utilizzare questi anniversari come punto di partenza per accompagnare i cittadini a riappropriarsi del loro passato in modo positivo, facendo crescere la loro consapevolezza del terremoto come un carattere del loro ambiente naturale. A tal fine, nelle attività realizzate con le scuole, abbiamo incoraggiato gli studenti a cercare le tracce dei terremoti di un secolo fa nell’ambiente urbanizzato e a indagare le memorie e le tradizioni ancora presenti nelle comunità. Insieme ai loro insegnanti abbiamo spinto i ragazzi a trovare modi creativi per coinvolgere gli adulti in questo processo di scoperta e conoscenza. Il progetto è stato messo alla prova dal forte terremoto dell’Italia centrale (20162017) e dall’epidemia di Covid19, ma nonostante queste difficoltà insegnanti e studenti hanno partecipato con grande interesse a questo percorso e hanno coinvolto nelle attività del progetto le famiglie e le comunità locali. Anche noi abbiamo imparato nuove lezioni. Un aspetto importante che abbiamo appreso è il bisogno di adattare il progetto a contesti sociali e culturali che si sono rivelati molto diversi. Le comunità coinvolte non condividono lo stesso livello di consapevolezza del rischio: sulla costa adriatica, a vocazione turistica, i terremoti sono qualcosa che è meglio dimenticare, sia da parte dei cittadini che dalle amministrazioni. Al contrario, nell’Appennino forlivese, nel Mugello, in Garfagnana e Lunigiana, i terremoti sono una presenza costante e le persone si sono sentite subito coinvolte in un processo attivo di riduzione del rischio e di attenzione quotidiana. Questo ci ha spinto ad adattare ogni volta l’approccio ai diversi contesti, modificando le proposte di attività che abbiamo realizzato nelle scuole.259 52 - PublicationOpen AccessThe 24 August 2016 Amatrice earthquake: macroseismic survey in the damage area and EMS intensity assessment(2016-11)
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; The 24 August 2016 earthquake very heavily struck the central sector of the Apennines among the Lazio,Umbria, Marche and Abruzzi regions, devastating the town of Amatrice, the nearby villages and other localities along the Tronto valley. In this paper we present the results of the macroseismic field survey carried out using the European Macroseismic Scale (EMS) to take the heterogeneity of the building stock into account. We focused on the epicentral area, where geological conditions may also have contributed to the severity of damage. On the whole, we investigated 143 localities; the maximum intensity 10 EMS has been estimated for Amatrice, Pescara del Tronto and some villages in between. The severely damaged area (8-9 EMS) covers a strip trending broadly N-S and extending 15 km in length and 5 km in width; minor damage occurred over an area up to 35 km northward from the epicenter.2855 245 - PublicationOpen AccessEmergenza e informazione(2012)
; ; ; ; ; ;Nostro, C.; Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione CNT, Roma, Italia ;Camassi, R.; Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione Bologna, Bologna, Italia ;Crescimbene, M.; Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione Roma1, Roma, Italia ;La Longa, F.; Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione Roma1, Roma, Italia ;Ercolani, E.; Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione Bologna, Bologna, Italia; ; ; ; Le esperienze di informazione in emergenza durante le sequenze sismiche in Abruzzo e nel Lazio del 2009770 419 - PublicationOpen AccessImproving the quality of the seismic catalogue by updating outdated or preliminary reference studies: case histories(2023-02-09)
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; The Parametric Catalogue of Italian Earthquakes CPTI15 [Rovida et al., 2022] includes 241 earthquakes whose epicentral parameters are based on studies marked AMGNDT95 [Archivio Macrosismico GNDT, 1995]. These are preliminary (or, in some cases, extremely basic) studies, that were carried out in the early 1990s by the GNDT/CNR (Gruppo Nazionale per la Difesa dai Terremoti of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche of Italy) in the frame of the “Hazard Project”, whose aim was making available the basic data required for preparing an updated hazard model, as quickly as possible and in the form of a parametric catalogue. Those AMGNDT95 studies that we define as “preliminary” derived the epicentral parameters of each studied earthquake from a data base reconstructed starting from the bibliographic references of the PFG catalogue [Postpischl, 1985] and going back, wherever possible to their original sources, according to a procedure called “Analysis Through Catalogues” [Stucchi, 1993]. The AMGNDT95 studies that we define as ‘extremely basic’, limited themselves to parameterizing the information provided by the bibliographic references of the PFG catalogue, i.e. in most cases the Baratta [1901] earthquake compilation or the seismological bulletins of the 19th-20th centuries. The AMGNDT95 studies remained unpublished and on paper only until the year 2017, when they were digitized within the framework of Annex B2 of the DPC-INGV 2016-2017 Convention, and made public via the ASMI platform [Rovida et al., 2017]. In the framework of the following triennial DPC-INGV Convention, an operation was then launched to update AMGNDT95 studies with revision priorities established according to the relevance of each earthquakes and to the potential margins for improving knowledge on each of them. As the operation was under way, the revision was extended to another 8 damaging earthquakes whose parameters in the CPTI15 catalogue were derived straight from the PFG catalogue. These earthquakes had never been studied and macroseismic data were lacking for them. The CPTI15 catalogue includes several hundred records derived directly from other parametric catalogues. In most cases they are related to earthquakes outside the national borders and their parameters are taken from the seismic catalogues of neighbouring countries (Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia). Only 56 of them are original records derived from the PFG catalogue [Postpischl, 1985] and mainly related to instrumental aftershocks of Italian earthquakes of the first decades of the 20th century. The 8 earthquakes mentioned above can be classified, on the contrary, as major events that had never been studied probably because the extreme poverty of the available source information made it difficult to improve in the short time allotted within the “Hazard Project” frame. A first selection of studies, related to earthquakes occurred in the 1949-1971 time window, was the subject of a communication at the 40th GNGTS conference in 2022 and was recently published [Bernardini et al., 2022]. Here we continue the presentation and discussion of the results of our work, taking into account a wider selection of AMGNDT95 studies related to earthquakes occurred from the 14th to the 20th century. These earthquakes belong to a very numerous category in the CPTI15 catalogue, i.e. they are damaging earthquake of moderate energy, with a very narrow base of data, often reduced to 1 or 2 intensity data only. The problem of the consistency of the information base from which to derive the epicentral parameters of earthquakes is very serious in the CPTI catalogue, which is nevertheless the result of an enormous amount of work carried out during more than thirty years of research. For instance, the current version of the catalogue, includes as many as 65 earthquakes with Mw≥ 5.5 (‘strong earthquakes’) that are documented by less than 11 intensity data points each ((or even, in about 20 cases, one intensity data point only). In the energy class Mw≥ 4.5, there are no less than 221 earthquakes documented by a single intensity data point only. For this reason, it is both necessary and important to improve the quality of the catalogue by producing new and better quality studies of the moderate-energy earthquakes. The results of the work are not all equally satisfactory. Overall, the revision has improved both the consistency of the intensity data that can be used to calculate epicentral parameters, and the individual intensity estimates, thanks to the availability of original sources and testimonies that allow to considerably refine the previous assessments, based as they were on second-hand seismological compilations only. Among the most significant results we include the exclusion from the catalogue of some earthquakes that turned out to be non-existent. One of them is the alleged Ischia earthquake of 1767, that was demonstrated to be a forgery generated by a 19th century local history which attributed the collapse of a small church to an earthquake, citing as its source an epigraph that does not mention any earthquake at all. The information of the local historian had been accepted ‘on trust’ by 19th century seismological compilations, and for this reason the news of this non-existent earthquake did continue to circulate - resurfacing even in recent scientific assessments and elaborations produced after the Ischian event of 21 August 2017. Now, a careful critical analysis has led to its recognition as a fake earthquake. Last but not least, it is important to know that our revision allows public and free access to all the information retrieved for each of the studied earthquakes. All available records of macroseismic effects that were retrieved during the study were transcribed and made available to the public through the Archivio Storico Macrosismico Italiano web platform [Rovida et al., 2017]. In this way, anyone wishing to take on the study of single earthquakes or groups of earthquakes will be able to start from a base of data organized in a homogeneous and transparent manner.39 7 - PublicationOpen AccessItalian Macroseismic Database DBMI15, version 4.0(2022-01-24)
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; 86 11 - PublicationOpen AccessDatabase Macrosismico Italiano DBMI15, versione 4.0(2022-01-24)
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; 102 33 - PublicationOpen AccessThe whole story: Rumors and science communication in the aftermath of 2012 Emilia seismic sequence(2023)
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; Controversies that stir the public debate on geological matters usually revolve around a few specific aspects, including the actual trigger of geological phenomena (i.e., natural vs. anthropogenic), their predictability, and the trustworthiness of the experts who provide information and advice on the phenomena. A typical example of such difficulties is the case of the 2012 Emilia, Italy, seismic sequence which struck an area of relatively moderate seismic hazard. In that period, geophysical prospecting was planned to assess the potential of a reservoir for gas storage, near the town of Rivara. The low frequency of important seismic events in the area, associated with the ongoing industrial planning prompted widespread rumors of an anthropogenic origin of the 2012 earthquakes. Controversy also arose about the actual size of the seismic events: earthquakes magnitude can be computed with different methods, and its value depends on the type, number, and geographical distribution of the available seismic stations. As a result, different institutions commonly release different estimates of the earthquake magnitude, casting doubts on the reliability of each estimate. Since 2012, public concern has also been caused by the repeated occurrence of unusual phenomena in the area, such as ground heating or bubbling well waters. Popular belief tends to establish a causal link between particular phenomena and seismic activity, reinforcing the false conviction that seismicity could be predicted. In this work we present and discuss some of the activities that INGV pursued through the years to contrast rumors and disseminate correct scientific information. In the aftermath of the 2012 seismic sequence, INGV worked in collaboration with the National Department of Civil Protection, the local administrations, the University Network of seismic engineering, the Regional Healthcare System and local volunteer organizations. The organization of public meetings, the collection and analysis of widespread rumors and the creation of ad hoc outreach materials all contributed to reinforce the mutual trust between our research institute and the local population. KEYWORDS295 44 - PublicationOpen AccessThe 2015 version of the Italian Parametric Earthquake Catalogue (CPTI15)(2016-09)
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; The Italian Parametric Earthquake Catalogue (CPTI) represents the most extensive and reliable source of parameters for earthquakes in Italy and surrounding areas. Since its first introduction in 1999, CPTI benefits from the results of the 30-years-long Italian tradition in historical earthquake research that, still today, keeps on providing a wealth of studies and macroseismic data. Such data have been collected, homogenized and made available through several releases of the related macroseismic database (DBMI). In 2016, the fourth release of CPTI and DBMI, has been finalized. They provide the most advanced and updated sets of macroseismic and instrumental data and parameters, and cover the time-span 1000-2014 with earthquakes with maximum intensity I ≥ 5 or magnitude Mw ≥ 4.0. The catalogue lists 4574 events, 70% of which accompa- nied by intensity data points (about 125’000 as a whole). Macroseismic data derive from 185 studies, 54 of them are new with respect to the previous version CPTI11. Parameters related to historical earthquakes are completely re-assessed, and magnitudes from macroseismic data are derived with new intensity-to-Mw relationships. Such relationships are based on the same dataset that contributes updated instrumental magnitudes to the catalogue. Either Mw from moment tensor solutions or proxies calculated with new published conversion relationship are considered. If available, both macroseismic and instrumental parameters are provided, together with a set of “preferred ones”, which consist of a selection between the macroseismic and the instrumental epicentres, and the weighted average of the macroseismic and instrumental magnitudes.226 88 - PublicationOpen AccessRilievo macrosismico per il terremoto del 9 dicembre 2019 in Mugello(2019-12-12)
; ; ; ; ; Macroseismic field survey for the 9 December 2019 earthquake, Mugello, performed by the QUEST team71 29