Crisis, Environmental Emergencies and Damage
Responsible: Ing. Claudio Numa
ISPRA it is the Competence Center of the Department for Civil Protection (DPC) and operational structure of the National Service of Civil Protection (SNPC). For the planning and operational management of specialist interventions to be implemented in crises and in the various phases of the emergency cycle, it ensures scientific technical support to the Department for Civil Protection, the Ministry of the Environment and Land Protection and del Mare (MATTM) and to all components and operational structures of the National Civil Protection Service (NCS), at central and peripheral level.
The crisis occurs when an expected event could lead to potentially dangerous situations for the environment and which could require the preparation of interventions to mitigate the potential risk factor.
An emergency occurs when a calamitous event, of natural origin or deriving from human activity, is such as to determine a dangerous situation for the immediate safety of people and for the integrity of goods and the environment and which requires exceptional and urgent interventions to be managed and brought back to normal.
An environmental emergency is defined as an emergency that affects environmental matrices such as water, air and soil. The environmental emergency can be an event in its own right or it can constitute a specific aspect of an emergency with a wider impact. In cases of emergency, immediate activities are the responsibility of the first aid and intervention agencies such as the fire brigade while ISPRA ensures technical and scientific support in real time or in deferred time. To this end, the ISPRA National Center for Crisis, Environmental Emergencies and Damage acts in close coordination and collaboration with the structures involved in the Institute and in conjunction with the SNPA Agencies, ensuring the first interface of the Institute towards the Bodies institutionally in charge of emergency management. In order to ensure the required support, ISPRA has equipped itself with some operational support tools including, an internal regulation for the management of crises and environmental emergencies and the establishment of an operational network of the SNPA for environmental emergencies.
ISPRA ensures, with the contribution of the SNPA operational network for environmental emergencies, also an environmental risk assessment and monitoring activity, aimed at indicating the first prevention and safety measures. The environmental risk is determined by the degraded environment, as a result of events of natural or anthropogenic origin, as a source of danger from which damage to man, property and the environment itself may arise, even in delayed time.
ISPRA ensures, within the SNPA system, on the basis of SNPA resolution 58/2019, the technical support to the Ministry of the Environment for the exercise of actions to repair environmental damage and prevent the threat of environmental damage, at the headquarters judicial and administrative offices, in collaboration with the ISPRA Operational Networks for Environmental Damage and with the regional / provincial Agencies, as well as specific technical / scientific study and training activities on environmental damage".