ENVIRONMENT DEPARTMENT

Helicopter ENVIRONMENT

Phases of a RES survey on David Glacier in Antarctica.

vlcsnap2 ENVIRONMENT

Images of submarine hydrothermal emissions off the coast of the island of Panarea. A natural laboratory where it is possible to explore and investigate the impact of gas emissions on the marine environment and on organisms. An ideal site for developing new generation technologies and instruments.

The Environment Department of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology has a multidisciplinary character.

It promotes research and studies in the context of a great variety of distinct scientific disciplines, sometimes even considerably different from each other, covering phenomena that touch all the "levels" of the planet, from the core to the outer margins of the magnetosphere and all the components: solid , fluid and gaseous. The researchers belonging to this department are dedicated to the study of a variety of natural processes that characterize the Earth system as a whole and that characterize the so-called geospheres (lithosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, atmosphere, magnetosphere) and their mutual interactions. These researches share the observation and study of natural geophysical and geochemical phenomena and their effects on the environment. The research conducted within the Department therefore aims to develop knowledge of critical elements of the Earth system and their reciprocal interactions. The set of research conducted in the Department of the Environment therefore has great potential for impact on the possibility of developing knowledge of the fundamental elements of the Earth system, with important repercussions both at a scientific level and for civil society.

The strategic objectives of the Department for the near future include highly topical topics on which the attention of both institutions and the scientific community, but also of the individual citizen, is highly focused:

Climate and climate change: these researches are conducted in different physical regions of the globe – some particularly relevant for global and/or regional climate – on different time scales, even at a geological scale. In fact, a realistic estimate for future climate variability scenarios can be based on the study of natural climate variability over geological time.
Phenomena related to Space Weather: research in this field concerns the study of the behavior of the Earth's magnetic field and of the upper ionized atmosphere (ionosphere) in the event of perturbation of solar origin and the potential impact of related phenomena on technological systems.
Development of research and methodologies for the understanding and quantitative estimation of the risks associated with environmental phenomena on land and at sea, such as degassing phenomena, gravitational and geomorphological instability (landslides, soil uplift, sink-holes) also in connection with phenomena of seismic and/or volcanic activity.
Development of research - scientific and technological - innovative and original for the application of geophysical and geochemical methodologies to the characterization of the Earth System environment as a whole and to monitor the natural and anthropic effects in different geological and social contexts.

Beyond the purely scientific field, there are many activities carried out in the Environment Department with implications and direct impact on society. Institutional research activities are generally carried out upon request and/or in agreement with various clients. In particular, in this area the activities include both institutional services with a long tradition (such as the production of cartography, the production and distribution of monthly and yearly bulletins and the supply of ionospheric forecasts, etc.) and the activities carried out upon request specific for consultancy with local authorities (municipalities, regions, Arpa) and state institutions (Carabinieri, Armed Forces, Coast Guard and Ministry of the Environment).

The service activities therefore include the monitoring of various components of the Earth system (observations of the Earth's magnetic field, the ionosphere, seas and oceans) and the related provision of services, both for mapping and for forecasting their evolution at different time scales; the formulation of sea level rise scenarios in coastal areas at risk of high environmental and cultural value; activities carried out for national anti-terrorism security and technical consultancy for international security; interventions aimed at characterizing the geological conditions of the subsoil; prospecting for the identification, detection and monitoring of environmental pollution phenomena (subsoil, water, air); definition of conceptual models of groundwater bodies aimed at drafting "Water Management Plans"; detection of the level of natural radioactivity in soils, groundwater and indoors.

The Department's activities take place in the Sections, technical-scientific organizational units, where research, monitoring, surveillance and infrastructure management activities are carried out.

The sections involved are:

Since mid-2018, the Environment Department, similarly to the other departments of the institute, has decided to make use of a communication platform that includes a blog and social channels, as schematized in the figure.