Monitoring System of Eastern Sicily (Italy) devised by a specialist team (UFSO) at the INGV- Catania Section, Italy.

Abstract

Eastern Sicily in Italy is well-known as a high seismic and volcanic risk area. From a monitoring point of view, a team/unit of people has been created (UFSO) with the task of managing all the activities connected to the faultless operation of the Working Room that is the strategic centre during periods of routine operations or in the case of emergency. Among the primary activities of monitoring and surveillance, the management of the video camera network located on the main Sicilian active volcanoes represents a major goal. This task is achieved by means of permanent, visible and infrared cameras together with similar mobile systems, in order to observe each phenomenon related to the volcanic activity. The expert staff can therefore make decisions, in real time, from useful information in order to understand the phenomena in action. With the aim of maximizing the results and performance of all the networks, the UFSO is attentive to the planning and realization of hardware and software systems that are always available in the mobile van unit. In this context, the staff actively participates in national and European research projects dealing with the development and use of new systems with high technological content. Another aspect of the work, moreover, is represented by the development of supervisory control software, namely software providing automatic control of the working systems. Such algorithms allow to immediately and remotely signal to the duty-personnel states of alert of several modules, indicating, when possible, the probable failure causes.