Tracking a decade of hydro-geological emergencies in Italy and their interplay with urban expansion

Climate change and urban expansion are contributing to a considerable increase in catastrophic atmospheric and hydro-geological events, which cause significant damage to the urban and social fabric.

This work takes Italy as a nation-wide case of study with a twofold objective: first, we compiled a dataset of recent hydro-geological disasters for which a state of emergency was declared; second, we focused on the interconnections between urban expansion and occurrence of disasters at the municipality level.

The dataset was built thanks to the collaboration with the Italian National Civil Protection Department, from which the data relating to national states of emergency and the surveys carried out were obtained. We discovered that in Italy, during the last ten years, there had been more than one hundred events that have required the intervention of national Civil Protection, with the declaration of the national state of emergency and the funding of interventions for first aid and restoration. The dataset consists of sets of municipalities and provinces that were included in the national state of emergency that suffered damage and obtained subsidies for reconstruction. Furthermore, information was collected regarding the beginning and end of the state of emergency, the days on which the event occurred, and the funds disbursed for recovery.

This database was the basis for subsequent analyses (at the municipality level and at the province level) aimed at quantifying the correlations between the occurrence of disasters and state-of-the-art indicators like soil consumption, extension of mapped hazardous zones, and buildings in areas at risk.