Carluccio, Ivano

n seismology, the swift deployment of seismic stations following an earthquake event is crucial for optimizing network coverage, facilitating accurate aftershock localization and characterizing the ongoing seismic sequence. SISMIKO [Moretti et al., 2023; DOI 10.3389/feart.2023.1146579] at Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) is an operational group specifically designed for the rapid installation of seismic stations in post-earthquake scenarios. Comprising trained personnel equipped with state-of-the-art technology, this group operates with the primary objective of augmenting existing seismic networks in epicentral area to capture aftershock activity comprehensively. Since 2008, thanks to the experience acquired during a series of destructive seismic sequences (i.e. L’Aquila in 2009, Po Plain in 2012 and Central Italy in 2016), SISMIKO worked for codifying a set of procedures that are now in place and that allow to provide a rapid response after an earthquake, managing preconfigured metadata parameters, the real-time centralization of all temporary seismic stations and a dedicated data acquisition system. This guarantees fast data availability for research purposes without any restrictions, and, if necessary, supports the INGV monitoring room 24/7 seismic surveillance system. For example, after the Mw 5.5, 9 November 2022 Costa Marchigiana offshore earthquake, data from seven rapidly deployed seismic stations were online within twelve hours from the event occurrence, aiding seismic emergency response. The scientific community can get high-quality data acquired by the SISMIKO group through the Italian node of the European Integrated Data Archive (EIDA [Danecek et al., 2021; DOI: 10.1785/0220200409.]). To better support the Open Science paradigm and the FAIR principles, data streams related to each seismic sequence are identified through Digital Object Identifier (DOI) assigned by the Data Registry [INGV DMO, 2020; DOI: 10.13127/data- registry], and they integrate those available from the permanent Italian National Seismic Network. Furthermore, these procedures also facilitate the recovery and standardization of continuous digital waveform datasets from the past 20 years, supporting global seismic activities and hazard studies. This rapid dissemination of data can support activities of the global seismological community, enhancing timely comprehension of earthquake sequences and facilitating seismic hazard studies.

Da venerdì 4 novembre a domenica 6 novembre 2022, si è tenuta una esercitazione nazionale denominata “Exe Sisma dello Stretto 2022” in un'area del territorio della Regione Calabria e della Regione Sicilia caratterizzata da una elevatissima pericolosità sismica. L’esercitazione è stata indetta e coordinata dal Dipartimento della Protezione Civile e aveva l’obiettivo di verificare la risposta operativa a un evento sismico significativo del Servizio Nazionale della Protezione Civile, di cui anche l’Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia fa parte. Durante le tre giornate, l’INGV ha avuto modo di testare tutte le procedure che l’Istituto ha codificato a partire da quelle del “Protocollo di Ente per le emergenze sismiche e da maremoto”. Dopo che INGV ha dato l’avvio all’intera esercitazione simulando il terremoto di magnitudo MW 6.2 (ML 6.0) alle ore 09:00 UTC in provincia di Reggio Calabria (5 km a SW dal comune di Laganadi), e ha, quindi, inviato il messaggio per il potenziale maremoto con un livello di allerta arancione; inoltre, il Presidente INGV ha prontamente convocato l’Unità di Crisi e attivato tutti Gruppi Operativi. Questi ultimi, nell’ambito dello scenario esercitativo, hanno verificato che i flussi di comunicazione interna e tutte le attività necessarie in emergenza sismica, presenti nei relativi protocolli operativi, risultassero rispettati. L’obiettivo primario dell’esercitazione è stato quindi quello di validare le attività previste e di aggiornare il personale afferente ai Gruppi Operativi stessi. Tra di essi, SISMIKO, che rappresenta il GO dedicato al coordinamento delle reti sismiche mobili INGV in emergenza, nelle settimane precedenti l’esercitazione ha predisposto tutte le attività che intendeva testare, descrivendole brevemente nel Documento d’impianto INGV e con maggior dettaglio in quello del Gruppo Operativo. A pochi giorni dalla chiusura dell’esercitazione, un terremoto di magnitudo ML 5.7 (MW 5.5) registrato alle ore 06:07 UTC del 09 novembre 2022 ha spostato l’attenzione dalla simulazione alla realtà.

The Near Fault Observatories (NFOs) community is one of the European Plate Observing System (EPOS, http://www.epos-eu.org) Thematic Communities, today consisting of six research infrastructures that operate in regions characterised by high seismic hazard originating from different tectonic regimes. Earthquakes respond to complex natural systems whose mechanical properties evolve over time. Thus, in order to understand the multi-scale, physical/chemical processes responsible for the faulting that earthquakes occur on, it is required to consider phenomena that intersect different research fields, i.e., to put in place multidisciplinary monitoring. Hence, NFOs are grounded on modern and multidisciplinary infrastructures, collecting near fault high resolution raw data that allows generation of innovative scientific products. The NFOs usually complement regional backbone networks with a higher density distribution of seismic, geodetic, geochemical and other geophysical sensors, at surface and sometimes below grade. These dense and modern networks of multi-parametric sensors are sited at and around active faults, where moderate to large earthquakes have occurred in the past and are expected in the future. They continuously monitor the underlying Earth instability processes over a broad time interval. Data collected at each NFO results in an exceptionally high degree of knowledge of the geometry and parameters characterizing the local geological faults and their deformation pattern. The novel data produced by the NFO community is aggregated in EPOS and is made available to a diverse set of stakeholders through the NFO Federated Specific Data Gateway (FRIDGE). In the broader domain of the Solid Earth sciences, NFOs meet the growing expectations of the learning and communication sectors by hosting a large variety of scientific information about earthquakes as a natural phenomenon and a societal issue. It represents the EPOS concept and objective of aggregating and harmonising the European research infrastructures capabilities to facilitate broader scientific opportunity. The NFOs are at the cutting edge of network monitoring. They conduct multidisciplinary experiments for testing multi-sensor stations, as well as realise robust and ultra-low latency, transmission systems that can routinely accommodate temporary monitoring densification. The effort to continuously upgrade the technological efficiency of monitoring systems positions the NFO at the centre of marketing opportunities for the European enterprises devoted to new sensor technology. The NFOs constitute ideal test beds for generating expertise on data integration, creating tools for the next generation of multidisciplinary research, routine data analysis and data visualization. In particular focus is often on near-real time tools and triggering alarms at different levels are tested and implemented, strengthening the cooperation with the Agencies for risk management. NFOs have developed innovative operational actions such as the Testing Centre for Earthquake Early Warning and Source Characterisation (CREW) and detailed fast ground shaking and damage characterization. Complementing the recent growth of modern laboratory and computational models, the NFOs can provide interdisciplinary observations of comparable high resolution to describe the behaviour of fault slip over a vast range of spatial and temporal scales and aiding to provide more accurate earthquake hazard characterizations.

The Orfeus European Integrated Data Archive (EIDA) provides a federated approach to the dissemination of seismological waveform data and ensures access to 12 regional seismological data centers—the EIDA nodes. The Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) is one of the founding partners of this EIDA federation and manages the EIDA data distribution node in Italy. INGV has actively managed the smaller MedNet archive since 1990 and adopted a more comprehensive and systematic approach to seismological data archiving since 2007. The Italian EIDA node data archive currently totals 90 TBytes of waveform data available for download, originating from 25 networks and 974 stations, provided by INGV, MedNet, or contributed by various partner institutions. Geographically, it covers mainly Italy and some stations from the Mediterranean region. The archive is currently growing at a rate of approximately 11 TB/yr. INGV recently strengthened its data management capabilities, resources, and infrastructure to effectively respond to the growing scale of station inventory, archive, and volumes of delivered data, and to acknowledge increasing attention toward open data sharing, appropriate attribution, and FAIR principles (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse), as well as higher demands on data quality and expectations of the scientific user community. To this end, it established a dedicated internal unit in charge of all relevant activities related to the Italian EIDA node. In this article, we address key aspects of the EIDA node in Italy such as evolution and status of the seismological waveform archive, and we describe the technical, organizational, and operational setup of data and service management. We also outline ongoing activities and future evolutions aiming to further increase the quality of services, data availability, data and metadata quality, resilience, and sustainability.

The Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) is an Italian research institution with focus on earth sciences. Moreover, the INGV is the operational center for seismic surveillance and earthquake monitoring in Italy and is a part of the civil protection system as a center of expertise on seismic, volcanic, and tsunami risks.INGV operates the Italian National Seismic Network and other networks at national scale and is a primary node of the European Integrated Data Archive for archiving and distributing strong‐motion and weak‐motion seismic recordings. In the control room in Rome, INGV staff performs seismic surveillance and tsunami warning services; in Catania and Naples, the control rooms are devoted to volcanic surveillance. Volcano monitoring includes locating earthquakes in the regions around the Sicilian (Etna, Eolian Islands, and Pantelleria) and the Campanian (Vesuvius, Campi Fregrei, and Ischia) active volcanoes. The tsunami warning is based on earthquake location and magnitude (M) evaluation for moderate to large events in the Mediterranean region and also around the world. The technologists of the institute tuned the data acquisition system to accomplish, in near real time, automatic earthquake detection, hypocenter and magnitude determination, and evaluation of several seismological products (e.g., moment tensors and ShakeMaps). Database archiving of all parametric results is closely linked to the existing procedures of the INGV seismic surveillance environment and surveillance procedures. Earthquake information is routinely revised by the analysts of the Italian seismic bulletin. INGV provides earthquake information to the Department of Civil Protection (Dipartimento di Protezione Civile) to the scientific community and to the public through the web and social media. We aim at illustrating different aspects of earthquake monitoring at INGV: (1) network operations; (2) organizational structure and the hardware and software used; and (3) communication, including recent developments and planned improvements.

A seismic monitoring infrastructure for relevant and strategic public buildings has been developed thanks to the agreement between the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) and Marche Region. The project was founded by European projects for the assessment of seismic risk for strategic public buildings, prevention and monitoring - European Territorial Cooperation Project Holistic (EU IPA-Adriatic) and READINESS (INTERREG Italy-Croatia). The project was born by taking advantage of the presence of MEMS accelerometers installed at the base of municipal buildings. The project aims to implement low-cost technologies and non-invasive methods to extend the seismic monitoring of the sites where the structures are located and characterize the seismic action in correspondence of them with a rapid estimate of the damage through relationships between acceleration and macroseismic intensity or fragility curves and construction features. Among the various activities, environmental seismic noise measurements were carried to investigate the fundamental vibration of the structures and soils, semi-automatic procedures were developed for the calculation of the strong motion parameters of seismic events and a web portal was implemented for the collection and rapid dissemination of information to local Civil Protection. An important part of the activities concerned the testing of new MEMS accelerometers through collaboration with the Polytechnic University of Marche (UNIVPM) and the headquarter of the Osservatorio Nazionale Terremoti (ONT) in Palermo. Moreover, new monitoring sites are being prepared in some municipalities affected by the 2016 seismic sequence. Since the beginning of the project, the strong motion parameters relating to 95 seismic events of magnitude greater than 3 and with ground motion accelerations greater than or equal to 0.001 g have been stored in the database.