Maramai, Alessandra

Game is a powerful educational tool able to involve students and keep their attention high, promoting cognitive development, discoveries, reasoning, and thinking. It is also an effective active form of learning which consolidates the acquired knowledge and carries out an authentic assessment through reality tasks and immediate feedback typical of the use of the digital games. Our gamy-learning experimentation focuses on new methods and practices of science communication, with the aim to face the challenge of educating about natural risks and climate change. The goal is to facilitate the automatic choice of good practices, by stimulating mind, intuition and logic in the perspective of teambuilding in school-based civic education. The proper application of technological tools is a valuable aid for conscious communication for the next generation. A Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Education is experienced, in order to test the efficacy of our GeoQuest TROPOMAG digital adventure, and pave the ground for the implementation of the storytelling in an integrated table game. Our climate change role-playing videogame explores phenomena related to the possible effects of changes in the Earth's magnetic field on the atmosphere. The virtual adventure path is played on smartphones and follows alternative paths chosen by the players to develop the storytelling. As a result, students play not only “just for fun”, but also to actively participate in their learning process and acquisition of new knowledge, skills and competences in environmental issues.

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.

Educational and training initiatives for natural hazard reduction, climate change, and environmental sustainability are increasingly common. We describe educational games in which the protagonist, a fictional character girl, saves herself and others from natural disasters. This girl faces risk situations, from earthquake to flood to environmental challenges, and for each of these she is the protagonist of educational quizzes and of an escape room. These games were designed and played online during the COVID-19 pandemic, to introduce an engaging activity, reducing the difficulties of both students and teachers in distance learning. Simultaneous challenges between several classes were played during special scientific events, with a total of more than 8000 students flanked by about 500 teachers, always with very positive feedback. We pooled our knowledge to embrace innovation in gamification at school. Our games aim at increasing the response capacity of future more resilient citizens to protect themselves and others, adapting to natural risks, and to spread good practices in support of the civil protection. Each online race between classes from primary and middle school (ISCDE 2) is based on cooperative learning and followed by an important debriefing moment of reflective learning, guided by researchers to deeply analyze scientific topics.

This study investigates the extra benefit provided by the joint use of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) polarimetric diversity and ascending/descending orbit passes to quantify postearthquake damage that occurred over the area of Amatrice, an Italian city significantly damaged by the 2016 Central Italy earthquake. First, the sensitivity of PolSAR features derived from SAR scenes collected under ascending/descending orbits to the damage is investigated. Then, the damage assessment is performed using a processing chain that consists of extracting dual-polarimetric SAR features to detect damage and, then, applying a fuzzy clustering scheme, to partition the feature outputs into damage levels. This processing chain is first separately applied to Sentinel-1 SAR scenes collected under ascending/descending orbits; then the processing outputs are merged using two different approaches. To discuss the quality of the estimated damage maps, ground information collected by surveys performed by a trained team is used. Experimental results show that the joint use of ascending/descending orbit passes improves the estimation of damage levels (up to 78 % ) with respect to the estimation performed using the orbiting passes separately.

In the frame of the Interreg Italy-Croatia program, the EU has funded the PMO-GATE project, focusing on the prevention and mitigation of the socioeconomic impact of natural hazards in the Adriatic region. The Database of Adriatic Tsunamis and Meteotsunamis (DAMT) is one of the deliverables of this project. DAMT is a collection of data documenting both meteotsunami and tsunami effects along the Eastern andWestern Adriatic coasts, and it was realized by starting from the available database and catalogues, with the inclusion of new data gained from recent studies, newspapers and websites. For each tsunami and meteotsunami, the database provides an overview of the event and a detailed description of the effects observed at each affected location and gives a picture of the geographical distribution of the effects. The database can be accessed through a GIS WebApp, which allows the user to visualize the georeferenced information on a map. The DAMT WebApp includes three layers: (1) Adriatic Tsunami Sources, (2) Adriatic Tsunami Observation Points and (3) Adriatic Meteotsunamis Observation Points. The database contains 57 observations of tsunami effects related to 27 tsunamis along the Italian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Albanian coasts and 102 observations of meteotsunami effects related to 33 meteotsunamis.

Nell’ambito degli studi atti a migliorare le conoscenze sulla sismicità del territorio nazionale, a partire dal CPTI15 è stato intrapreso un lavoro di analisi di quei terremoti che presentavano scarsi o pressoché nulli dati di base e che necessitavano di un approfondimento delle conoscenze. In particolare l’analisi ha riguardato i terremoti che avevano come unico studio di riferimento il Bollettino Macrosismico Italiano (BMING/BMINGV). Di questi ne sono stati individuati circa quaranta che sono oggetto di questo lavoro. Per ogni terremoto sono stati recuperati i questionari macrosismici originali presenti nell’Archivio Macrosismico INGV ed è stata svolta una ricerca accurata delle fonti giornalistiche in diverse emeroteche. Sono stati revisionati i dati di 38 terremoti di magnitudo mediobassa, avvenuti tra il 1980 e il 2002: in totale sono stati esaminati circa 2000 questionari macrosismici riferiti a oltre 1400 località. Sono state individuate circa 400 nuove località per le quali erano disponibili informazioni relative a 30 eventi, per un totale di oltre 450 nuove osservazioni macrosismiche stimate secondo l’intensità EMS98. Per ogni terremoto sono stati calcolati i parametri macrosismici ed è stata compilata una scheda riassuntiva con i nuovi dati e una mappa della distribuzione geografica delle osservazioni.

This study analyzes the ability of polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) measurements to quantify post-earthquake damages. To achieve this goal, a twofold task is addressed: on one side a processing chain, which exploits multi-polarization SAR features, and a decision-tree classifier is proposed to quantify the levels of damage in earthquake-affected urbanized areas using dual-polarimetric (DP) SAR imagery. On the other side, a new damage index is developed that allows a fair spatial intercomparison of building-by-building information, collected via ground surveys on the damaged areas, and SAR-derived damage maps. The proposed rationale is showcased using measurements related to the Central-Italy Earthquake occurred in 2016 where both Sentinel-1 DP imagery and ground-based information are available. Experimental results demonstrate the soundness of the proposed approach. The main outcomes can be summarized as follows: a) DP features perform better than single-polarization ones; b) DP features exhibit a larger sensitivity to lower damage grades if compared to the single polarization (SP) feature; c) the accuracy of the estimated damage levels depends on the requested granularity in the damage maps; d) the accuracy obtained using DP features spans from 52% up to 71% when five and two damage classes are considered, respectively.

Traditional tsunami catalogues are conceived as a collection of tsunamis classified by the generating cause, providing a general description of the effects observed for each tsunami. Those catalogues, even if they provide fundamental information, are not suitable for producing an exhaustive picture of the geographical distribution of the tsunami effects. In this paper we introduce the new Italian Tsunami Effects Database (ITED), a collection of evidence documenting the effects along the Italian coasts from historical times to present. The database comes forth the Euro-Mediterranean Tsunami Catalogue (EMTC) and focusses on the effects of tsunamis observed along the Italian coasts providing descriptive and quantitative information for each OP. The information reported in ITED does not only concern the effects produced by Italian tsunamis, but also those effects produced by tsunamis originated outside the Italian territory. ITED contains 318 OPs, related to 73 Italian tsunamis and to four tsunamis which occurred outside Italy. The database can be accessed through aWebApp that displays for each OP the description of effects, quantitative data (run-up, inundation, withdrawal, etc.) and tsunami intensity with the corresponding bibliographic references. The database also provides the tsunami intensity distribution along time (tsunami-history) for each site, allowing the end user to know how a place has been affected by tsunamis over the time. The information contained in ITED makes this database a useful tool to understand how tsunamis have affected the Italian territory and emphasizes the importance of studying the tsunami hazard along the Italian coasts.

Quarant’anni fa, il 23 novembre del 1980, un forte terremoto ha scosso l’Italia meridionale. È stato il più forte evento sismico degli ultimi 100 anni nel nostro Paese, e il suo ricordo è ancora vivo non solo in Campania e Basilicata, dove portò morte e distruzione, ma in tutta Italia e nel mondo. Da quella catastrofe iniziò tuttavia una lunga rincorsa della ricerca scientifica, orientata alla comprensione del fenomeno e alla difesa dai terremoti. Se per lunghi secoli l’umanità ha vissuto nella paura dei terremoti, attribuiti ora ad animali prodigiosi, ora a divinità infuriate, a passaggi di comete nel cielo, all’azione di gas sotterranei o scariche elettriche, oggi disponiamo di un buon bagaglio di conoscenze sui terremoti e i maremoti, che ci consentono di sapere come difenderci. La conoscenza, infatti, rappresenta il primo passo verso la consapevolezza e quindi la difesa dai rischi. In questo libro terremoti e maremoti vengono “scoperti” come fenomeni naturali. Perché e dove avvengono? Come si misurano? Quali sono stati quelli più forti in Italia e nel mondo? Qual è la pericolosità del nostro territorio e delle nostre coste? Come possiamo difenderci? A quarant’anni dal terremoto, abbiamo voluto riproporre questo libro in una veste aggiornata e arricchita, affinché possa contribuire alla crescita di una necessaria cultura della prevenzione soprattutto tra gli studenti e le nuove generazioni.