APPLIED RESEARCH

PROGEA was founded in 2000 on the basis of know-how, products and personnel from ET&P Srl. The two companies can count on many applied research projects at national and international scale.

MUSHROOM (Multiple Users Service for Hydro-geological Risk Open and Operational Management)

TIME: European Union, 2003-2004

GOAL: The MUSHROOM project analyzed requirement and potential market of an integrated multi-functional warning system for hydro-geologic risk that included systems, instruments and technologies finalized to support emergencies and reduce effects of floods (ground-based and satellite networks, Internet/Intranet, Fax, GSM/WAP/GPRS, mobile and telephone).

The project intended to stimulate the market and to create opportunity of development for a information technologies and communication based service. The Mushroom project included the realization of a prototype of the system on two cases of studies: the Secchia river catchment in Italy, and the Segura raiver in Spain.

PARTNERS: DATAMAT S.p.A., ARPA Emilia-Romagna - Servizio Meteorologico Regionale, GEOSYS S.L.,Telespazio S.p.A., NUWATER Consulting Service Ltd. ,Regione Emilia Romagna - Servizio Tecnico Bacino Reno ,Provincia di Modena ,Instituto Murciano de Investigación y Desarrollo Agroalimentario, Confederación Hidrográfica del Segura, Terra Incognita Europa Limited.

WSM (Water Strategy Man decision support system)

TIME: European Union, 2002-2005

GOAL: The goal of the WSM project - "Developing Strategies for Regulating and Managing Water Resources and Demand in Water Deficient Regions" is the study of the differences between quantity and quality dimensions in water management and the development of alternative options and long-term scenarios, through the establishment of a broad framework on the existing knowledge on IWRM practices, while highlighting of the importance of regionalization and the relevant cultural context.

Methodology, tools, guidelines and protocols of implementation will be developed that will enable decision makers to select and implement relevant water schemes for full water cost recovery.

The project aims at developing an integrated water resources management that takes into account economic, technical, social, institutional and environmental implications, to meet both directly and indirectly the EU requirements concerning preservation and enhancement of the quality of the environment and the availability of natural resources and sustainable development.

WaterStrategyMan is a project of the Arid Cluster.

PARTNERS: National Technical University of Athens (Coordinatore), Ruhr-University, ProGEA S.r.l., Office International de l' Eau, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Universidade do Porto, INSULA (International Scientific Council for Island Development, Spain), Water Development Deparment & AEOLIKI LTD, Cyprus.

WEBSITE: http://environ.chemeng.ntua.gr/wsm/

CARPEDIEM (Critical Assessment of available Radar Precipitation Estimation techniques and Development of Innovative approaches for Environmental Management)

TIME: European Union, 2002-2004

GOAL: The principal objective of the project is to assimilate in the currently available NWP methods information obtained from Doppler moments and reflectivity along with other remote sensing data. The scientific strategy would be to convert Doppler data into atmospheric parameters suitable for linking to NWP algorithms.

Another innovative aspect of the proposed work is to exploit NWP results to improve the interpretation of radar measurements. This exercise, complementary to the previous one, not only enables a general improvement in extracting information from radar but also a reduction in inherent radar errors, thus allowing to quality control radar measurements.

Finally, a major component will be the hydrological assessment of the benefits in terms of reduced uncertainty obtainable with the improved rainfall field, forecasted and estimated, coupled with an assessment of the sensitivity of hydrological models to different errors in their input. The joint use of all the information available will increase the overall quality of the actual flood forecasting.

CARPE DIEM project will advance the present state of the art, mainly by increasing the co-operative use of high-resolution radar information and NWP. A key aspect can be identified in the assimilation of Doppler radar moments. The use of different numerical techniques increases the possibility of successfully attaining the project objectives.

PARTNERS: ARPAEmilia-Romagna - Servizio Meteorologico Regionale, PROGEA s.r.l., DLR (Deutschen zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt) , SMHI (Swedish Meteorological Hydrological Institute), FMI (Finnish Meteorological Institute), University of Essex, Universitat de Barcelona, CNR-Istituto di Scienze dell'Atmosfera e del Clima, University of Dublin (Centre For Water Resources Research).

WEBSITE: http://carpediem.ub.es/

MUSIC (MUlti-Sensor precipitation measurements Integration, Calibration and flood forecasting)

TIME: European Union, 2001-2004

GOAL: The basic role of any real-time quantitative precipitation and flood forecasting system lies in its capability, within the forecasting horizon, of assessing and reducing the uncertainty in forecasts of future events in order to allow improved warnings and operational decisions for the reduction of flood risk. In line with this requirement, the MUSIC project is to develop an innovative technique for improving the weather radar, weather satellite and rain gauge derived precipitation data, taken as independent measurement sources, and to use the resulting product in an integrated prototype flood forecasting system.

In broad outline the work consists of developing a number of guided procedures and tools for combining in an objective and optimal way different sources of precipitation estimates in order to reduce the final product bias and uncertainty and to make the resulting precipitation estimates available for the analysis of areas at risk from flooding as well as inputs to real-time flood forecasting systems.

Three basic independent sources of precipitation estimates will be used: rain-gauges, meteorological radar and satellite images. Each estimate is affected by biases and by errors of different sources and nature. Given the independent nature of the sources of errors, the technique based upon the conjunctive use of block Kriging and of the Bayesian combination, recently developed at the University of Bologna, will allow for the substantial elimination of the bias and the reduction of the variance of the estimation errors, thus increasing the reliability of the precipitation estimates.

PARTNERS: PROGEA, Università di Bologna, Università di Newcastle upon Tyne, CNR-ISAO, GEMATRONIC, AVS, FMA e Servizio Meteorologico Polacco.

WEBSITE: http://www.geomin.unibo.it/hydro/music/

SUPREME (Sistema di SUpporto decisionale per la PRevisione degli Eventi catastrofici e la prevenzione e Mitigazione degli Effetti sui beni ambientali e culturali)

TIME: MURST, 1998-2002

GOAL: The project analyzed and developed a system for estimating catastrophic natural or entropic events and for planning intervention in order to reduce the effects by following the events during different emergency phases. The system studies both flooding events, with related damages on the cultural and environmental heritage, and atmospheric pollution, with related monument and buildings deterioration, social and environmental damage.

SUPREME is an integrated tool which allows user to forecast flooding and pollutant diffusion in atmosphere starting from forecasting and real time analysis of meteorological events at different time scales in order to evaluate decision effects on the reduction of cultural and environmental heritage damages.

PARTNERS: ENEA, Università di Bologna, Università di Trento, CISI AID, ET&P Srl.

WEBSITE: http://www.afs.enea.it/protprev/www/prefazione.htm

DESIREE (DEcision Support system for Inundation Risk Evaluation and Emergencies management)

TIME: European Union, 1998-2000

GOAL: Scope of the project was the implementation of a decisional support system for flood risk operational A Decision Support System for flood operational management for helping, in emergency, the operative civil protection managers to efficiently plan the rescue activities.

PARTNERS: SCAM, ENEA, ET&P Srl

EUREKA (EU487 "ENVINET – INFOSYSTEM)

TIME: European Union, 1995-1997

GOAL: The project was aimed to create a decisional information system for planning and management of water resources and environment impact assessment.

PARTNERS: Ansaldo Energia, IMI, ET&P Srl.

FUCHUN RIVER (Real Time Monitoring System for optimal computer control of the FUCHUN River hydropower station reservoir)

TIME: European Comunity Comission, 1989 - 1991

GOAL: The project consisted in the development of a real time hydrological data acquisition system and flood forecasting system in the Zhejiang Province of the People's Republic of China. The system, consists in 22 multisensor reporting stations, 9 repeating stations and two master stations each with two PC and a Unix based Workstation.

Real time flood forecasting models as well as data bank, models bank and training of chinese staff were part of the project.

Inside the project two software packages have been developed. The first one is EFFORTS (European Flood Forecasting Operational Real Time System), a graphical and interactive interface for real time flood forecasting which can be used for monitoring and alerting floods. The second one is "HFS" - Hydrological Forecasting System, an interactive package developed in UNIX operating system for setting up and calibrating hydraulic and hydrological models. It includes a data and forecasting models bank.