Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche – Istituto di Ricerca sulle Acque

The Water Research Institute (IRSA), an operative body of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), was established in 1968. Main activities of the Institute are to provide Parliament and the State Administration, as well as the water management agencies and national industries, with know-how and innovative technologies and tools for the rational utilization and protection of water resources. The ongoing research program is designed to provide decision-making methods and tools for the management of surface and groundwater resources under present and climate change conditions. IRSA deeply investigated the behaviour of surface and groundwater resources in condition of scarcity taking into account the potential conflicts among water users and other institutional and economic actors. IRSA has been involved in several EU research projects dealing with drought risk analysis and management. Research activities concerning the development and implementation of drought and flood risk reduction policies have been carried out at national and international level. Most of these activities were aiming to enhance the involvement of stakeholders in the decision-making process. IRSA is member of the expert group on Water Scarcity & Drought, formed within the EU CIS. Moreover, IRSA is partner of the WssTP (Water supply and sanitation Technology Platform) and participates to the “Hydro Climatic Extremes” pilot. IRSA have participated in several European projects devoted to climate change (CHESS), implementation of WFD (HarmonIT, HarmoniRiB, EuroHarp, TempoQSim) and land use management (AgriBMP-Water). Within the 6FP IRSA was deeply involved in research projects focused on drought management. IRSA coordinated AquaStress-IP focusing on mitigation measures of water stress through new approaches to integrated management, technical, economic and institutional instruments. IRSA was also involved in NeWater, aiming to define innovative approaches for the adaptive water management under conditions of complexity and uncertainty. IRSA was involved in CIRCE project which aimed at predicting and quantifying physical impacts of climate change in the Mediterranean area, and evaluating the consequences of climate change for the society and the economy of the populations located in the Mediterranean area. Currently, IRSA is involved in EDUCEN project aiming at developing innovative tools to enhance the interactions among institutions and communities during the different phases of emergency management at urban level.

http://www.irsa.cnr.it/

CNR-IRSA brings in expertise on water management and innovations in adaptation to climate change. CNR-IRSA brings expertise in social and institutional network analysis for climate-related risk management. CNR-IRSA leads WP4 and is involved in work packages WP1 and WP5, and has contributions to WP6 and WP7.

Raffaele Giordano

Raffaele Giordano is Research Scientist at the Water Research Institute since 2005, with permanent position from February 2010. His main research field concerns the integration of scientific and stakeholders’ knowledge to develop decision support tools for drought risk assessment and management. Current research activities are dealing with participatory modelling for conflict analysis in climate change adaptation. The aim is to investigate the suitability of different modelling approaches – e.g. Fuzzy Cognitive Maps, Bayesian Belief Networks, System Dynamic Modelling, Social Network Modelling – to simulate the complex network of interaction among decision makers, decisions and actions. His research activity has produced over 30 papers published in international journals, book chapters, conference proceedings and abstracts. He is a reviewer in several science journals in the field of environmental resources management and decision analysis. He has been a lecturer for several post-graduate courses organized by Italian and international organizations in the field of water resources management.

Giordano, R., Liersch, S. (2012) A fuzzy GIS-based system to integrate local and technical knowledge in soil salinity monitoring. Environmental Modelling & Software, 36, 49-63.

Giordano, R. D’agostino, D., Apollonio, C., Lamaddalena, N., Vurro M. (2013). Bayesian Belief Network to support conflict analysis for groundwater protection: The case of the Apulia region. Journal of Environmental Management, 15, 136-146.

Giordano, R., Preziosi, E., Romano, E. (2013). Integration of local and scientific knowledge to support drought impact monitoring: some hints from an Italian case study, Natural Hazards, 69(1), 523-544.

Portoghese, I., D’Agostino, D., Giordano, R., Scardigno, A., Apollonio, C., Lamaddalena, N., Vurro, M. (2013). An integrated   modelling   tool   to   evaluate   the   acceptability   of   irrigation   constraint   measures   for groundwater protection. Environmental Modelling & Software, 46, 90-103.

Concilio G., Molinari F (2014) Urban living labs: learning environments for collective behavioural change. In Carlucci D., Spender JC., Schiuma G (Eds) Proceedings of the IFKAD 2014conference, pp. 746-763.

New Approaches for Adaptive Water Management under Uncertainty (NeWater), FP6. The project main goal was to develop innovative water management framework to cope with uncertainty. Among the different activities, CNR-IRSA was responsible to develop innovative monitoring and information system capable to support the continuous evaluation and adaptation of policies for adaptation to climate change.

AquaStress, FP6, aimed at assessing the main risks due to climate change in different study areas and to suggest mitigation measures. CNR-IRSA was the scientific coordinator of the project and carried out several activities related to the use of climate data for risk assessment. Besides, CNR-IRSA developed a participatory monitoring and evaluation system for water stress mitigation measures.

Climate Change and Impacts Research: the Mediterranean Environment (CIRCE), FP7. The project aimed at predicting and quantifying physical impacts of climate change in the Mediterranean area, and evaluating the consequences of climate change for the society and the economy of the populations located in the Mediterranean area. CNR-IRSA was responsible to develop model for downscaling the climate change impacts on groundwater systems.

Vulnerability assessment of water supply and sanitation system under extreme events (National project). The project aimed at developing innovative models for assessing the risk of failures of water supply systems, even in case of data scarcity.

European Disasters in Urban centres: a Culture Expert Network (3C – Cities, Cultures, Catastrophes) – EDUCEN, H2020. The activities carried out by CNR-IRSA in this project aim at analyzing the flow of knowledge and information within the existing socio-institutional networks in case of extreme event.