Bellucci Sessa, Eliana

Lahars, landslides and debris flows are rapid natural phenomena that can heavily impact on and modify the environment, not only that from which they are triggered but also the one in which they propagate or leave deposits. In particular, lahars can reach significant runout distances from source areas (e.g., several km) and this can mainly depend, among other factors, on the morphology experienced by such propagation. There are cases in the recent history of natural occurrences in which lahars impacted catastrophically on rural and urban settings, such as for example at Nevado del Ruiz volcano (Colombia) in 1985 causing the death of thousands of people living around there. A more recent event occurred on November 26, 2022 at Ischia island (Italy), which is an active volcano particularly subjected to the recurrence of these phenomena. In this case, the emplacement of some lahars caused the death of a few tens of people and the damaging of tens of building, besides the direct impact on local agriculture and tourism. In the nearby Neapolitan volcanic area, several other lahar events occurred in the historical past, not only during but also after or well after explosive eruptions, as the evidence that these phenomena are still to be considered as complex and often unpredictable extreme natural events, also exacerbated by the climate changes, but also that they have some recurrence that cannot be neglected. Such kind of recurrence is mainly related to the local weather, which can even affect the intrinsic behavior of the flows that detach from the source areas and invade the territory. On the other hand, this is not a strictly statistical issue, as there are instrumental measurements that support the fact that heavy rains can exacerbate a landscape already prone to sliding, avalanching, and other catastrophic phenomena. For this, the November 26, 2022 Ischia case study was chosen with the goal of reconstructing the physical features that led to the lahar generation and invasion, which is something that might occur in the future but that should be experienced with a dedicated scientific and territorial consciousness. What was done is an integration of multidisciplinary approaches, corroborated by data from the INGV-OV monitoring network installed on the volcano, capable of detecting the otherwise lost flow timing and dynamical behavior. In particular, the seismic evidence that accompanied the Ischia lahar events, along with the consideration of some lithological features leading to an estimation of flow velocity and dynamic pressure, allow to discriminate multiple lahar pulses over the early morning of November 26, 2022. The main findings of this contribution are that the potential of the Ischia lahars had a sort of recharge timespan which depended on the local weather and lithological features, while the threshold of the lahar trigger depended on the hydrogeological conditions. The seismic reconstruction of the entire event allowed to quantify the first of these two critical issues at Ischia island.

The first hydrogeological mapping of Ischia Island at the 1:10,000 scale is presented and discussed. The ‘Map of the geohydrologic units of Ischia Island’ and the accompanying hydrostratigraphic sequence at a basin scale are based on the most recent geological maps and data from the CAR.G Project, and on new volcanological and hydrogeological surveys and studies. Data sources include the database stored by the INGV, Sezione di Napoli, Osservatorio Vesuviano and field investigations, including a survey of the springs and thermo-mineral springs which has been neglected up to now. In total 130 volcanostratigraphic units and 18 geohydrologic units were recognized; the distribution of fumaroles sites was enhanced, and 60 springs/thermal springs were identified/rediscovered. The proposed hydrogeological map provides an overview of the volcano-tectonic evolution of Ischia Island and upgrades the hydrogeological model, becoming a catalyst for the effort to acquire better data and to manage natural both resources and risks.

A wide-ranging overview on the ground uplift and seismic activity during the 1969-1972, 1982-1984, and 2005-ongoing unrest episodes at Campi Flegrei caldera is delivered using data reported in literature and those contained in the OV-INGV databases and surveillance reports. In this study, an attempt to correlate the increase of the ground uplift rate and the occurrence of seismic events with M ≥ 1.5 is made also by reporting some general features on the ground deformations and seismic activity of the 1969-1972 and 1982 1984 unrest episodes. The original graphs, created to compare the ground uplift with the seismic activity, highlight that the increment of the seismic activity, both in number but especially in magnitude, occurs when in the presence of an increment of the ground uplift rate. This feature appears to be common to both the large uplift episodes (1969 1972, 1982-1984, and 2005-ongoing) and the mini-uplift ones (e.g. 2000). Based on our observations on the occurrence of the seismic events with M ≥ 3.5, we hypothesise that, following an uplift rate of approximately 5 mm/day for a few days, seismic events with M ≥ 4.5 may occur. Under such hypothesis, also considering the approximate migration of the epicentres of the seismic events with M ≥ 2.5 of the ongoing unrest, we believe that a reassessment of the seismic hazard for the area of Campi Flegrei could be useful.

Lo studio dell’andamento del bradisismo ai Campi Flegrei, a partire dal IV sec. d.C. nel corso dei secoli fino ai tempi moderni, è stato possibile grazie a osservazioni compiute sulle rovine di un monumento situato a poche decine di metri dal porto di Pozzuoli: il Macellum, meglio noto come Tempio di Serapide o Serapeo. La sua peculiarità è la presenza, a varie altezze sulle tre colonne ancora erette, di fori di litodomi che sono indice del livello marino nel passato. Grazie alla datazione di tali fori è stato possibile ricostruire le oscillazioni del livello del mare dovute al sollevamento o abbassamento del suolo a Pozzuoli nel tempo.

The aim of this study is to analyse problems related to thermal mapping obtained from thermal data acquired from unmanned aerial systems (UAS) equipped with thermal cameras. We focused on an accurate analysis of uncertainties introduced by the PIX4D Mapper software version 4.4.12 used to obtain the surface temperature maps of thermal images acquired using the UAS. To achieve this aim, we used artificial thermal references during the surveys, as well as natural hot targets, i.e., thermal anomalies in the Pisciarelli hydrothermal system in Campi Flegrei caldera (CFc). Artificial thermal targets, expressly created and designed for this goal, are a prototype here called “developed thermal target” (DTT) created by the drone laboratory at Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia—Osservatorio Vesuviano (INGV-OV).We show the results obtained through three surveys, and during the last two, thermal targets were positioned on land at different flight heights of the UAS. Different heights were also necessary to test the spatial resolution of the DTT with the used thermal camera as well as possible temperature differences between the raw images acquired via UAS with the thermal mapping obtained from the PIX4D Mapper software. In this work, we estimate the uncertainty that may be introduced by the mosaic procedure, and furthermore we find an attenuation of the measured temperatures introduced by the different distances between the thermal anomaly and sensor. These results appear to be of great importance for the subsequent calibration phase of the thermal maps, especially in cases where these methodologies are applied for the purposes of monitoring volcanic/geothermal areas.

The ability to image the underground structures of volcanoes is limited by the precision, resolution and pene tration depth of each single geophysical method. In order to improve the knowledge of specific volcanic edifices and to better understand the general behavior of structures, the use of a combination of methods is strongly recommended to exploit and maximize their complementary capabilities of resolution and penetration depths. In this work a large dataset of seismic and electromagnetic measurements has been used to provide a more detailed and improved geophysical image of the shallower portion of the northern sector of Ischia Island(Campania region, Italy), severely hit by the August 21, 2017 earthquake (Mw 3.9). We analysed data by using different methodologies: Horizontal-to-Vertical Spectral Ratio (HVSR), seismic array technique (f k),polarization analysis and Time Domain ElectroMagnetic (TDEM) survey. These methods are sensitive in a different way to tectonic features, lithologies, layer geometry and fluid distribution. Thus, their combination is useful for studying sites with complex crustal structures such as Ischia island, which is characterized by a well-developed geothermal system linked to the presence of a shallow magmatic body. Results of our study provides detailed information of the physical properties of the subsoil through: 1) the spatial distribution of the amplification parameters of ground motion, showing frequency peaks below 1 Hz and/or between 1 Hz and 5 Hz; 2) the definition of the velocity models up to 600 m depth, with shear wave velocities ranging from 150 m/s for the shallower layers to 2500 m/s for the half space; 3) the recognition of the correlation between the principal fault structures and polarization directions of the noise wavefield, mostly oriented along EW and NE-SW directions; 4) the resistivity models of the first 80 m depth with high resistivity values of the shallow layers in the range 50–100 Ω.m and low resistivity values of the bottom layers in the range 1–10 Ω.m.

Communication is not only through words. Man has used any medium to memorize places and describe the area around him through cartography for over 4000 years. By means of new technologies we have passed from computer-drawn maps to georeferenced digital maps, up to georeferenced data shared via webgis. The Osservatorio Vesuviano is the Sezione di Napoli of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, a research institution whose main purpose is the monitoring of Campania volcanic areas by means of different types of networks (consisting of fixed and mobile stations), each of which records different parameters. The Osservatorio Vesuviano has built a constantly evolving GIS environment database to manage geographic data in order to remember and understand the distribution of these networks. This paper presents the open access database “moNitoring mAps of camPania voLcanoES” (NAPLES), which provides monitoring networks maps. You can access NAPLES database and download the maps you need both from Osservatorio Vesuviano website or from Zenodo open database.

We investigate the dependence of the Gutenberg–Richter b parameter on the crustal thickness quantified by the Moho depth, for nine different regional catalogs. We find that, for all the catalogs considered in our study, the b‐value is larger in areas presenting a thicker crust. This result appears in apparent contradiction with previous findings of a b decreasing with the focal depth. However, both the results are consistent with acoustic emission experiments, indicating a b‐value inversely proportion to the applied differential stress. Our results can be indeed interpreted as the signature of a larger stress concentration in areas presenting a thinner crust. This is compatible with the scenario where postseismic deformation plays a central role in stress concentration and in aftershock triggering.

Assessing the variations in space and time of groundwater circulation in volcanic islands is of paramount importance to the description of the hydro-geo-thermal system and implementation of hydrogeological, geochemical, and volcanic monitoring systems. In fact, the reliable reconstruction of the groundwater potentiometric surface in such composite volcanic aquifer systems can enable the identification of the most advantageous strategies for both the sustainable use of groundwater resources and the management of volcanic risk. Geographical Information System (GIS) platforms can support the integration and analysis of many spatial and temporal variables derived from monitoring of active volcanoes and the elaboration of spatially continuous data. However, open issues still affect the reliability and general applicability of common spatial interpolation methods in the case of groundwater potentiometric surfaces. This is related to the assessment of the main stratigraphic and volcano-tectonic features affecting the hydraulic head changes. With regard to the dynamically very active Ischia Island (Italy), this study illustrates a GIS-based hydrogeological approach to identify the most accurate interpolation method for mapping the potentiometric surface in complex hydrogeological terrains. The proposed approach has been applied to the existing dataset (1977–2003) stored by Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia. Based on a careful geological and hydrogeological survey, a total of 267 wells, from 5 to 250 m in depth, were processed. The data pre-processing involved four meteorological time-series data (1922–1997) and six long records of piezometric water levels (1930–1994). As a result, knowledge of the delineation of rather homogeneous stratigraphic and volcano-tectonic structures at the basin-scale has improved. Thus, new, more reliable potentiometric surfaces of the four main geothermal areas closest to the coast were produced during both dry and wet seasons. The reliability of the processed potentiometric surface was then validated by comparing the spatially continuous data with complementary field data. These findings point toward an optimal interpolation approach for representing the seasonal and areal distribution of main hydrogeological parameters in complex aquifer systems. Finally, insights into variations of hydrological behavior at an active volcanic area will foster an understanding of possible involvement of fresh and thermal waters in triggering phreatic explosions.

We analyse spatiotemporal gravity changes observed on the Ischia island (Italy) accompanying the destructive earthquake of 21 August 2017. The 29 May 2016 to 22 September 2017 time-lapse gravity changes observed at 18 benchmarks of the Ischia gravimetric network are rst corrected for the gravitational e ect of the surface deforma- tion using the deformation-induced topographic e ect (DITE) correction. The co-seismic DITE is computed by Newtonian volumetric integration using the Toposk software, a high-resolution LiDAR DEM and the co-seismic vertical displacement eld derived from Sentinel-1 InSAR data. We compare numerically the DITE eld with its commonly used Bouguer approximation over the island of Ischia with the outcome that the Bouguer ap- proximation of DITE is adequate and accurate in this case. The residual gravity changes are then computed at gravity benchmarks by correcting the observed gravity changes for the planar Bouguer e ect of the elevation changes at benchmarks over the same pe- riod. The residual gravity changes are then inverted using an inversion approach based on model exploration and growing source bodies, making use of the Growth-dg inversion tool. The found inversion model, given as subsurface time-lapse density changes, is then interpreted as mainly due to a co-seismic or post-seismic disturbance of the hydrothermal system of the island. Pros and weak points of such interpretation are discussed.