Hydrogeological vigilance in the Eternal City: Insights from the development and strengthening of Rome's groundwater monitoring network

The Groundwater Monitoring Network of Rome (GMNR) was born on 2014 when the Environmental Protection Department of Roma Capitale (Municipality of Rome) decided to dedicate the more than 200 existing water wells (mainly developed for green areas irrigation) also for monitoring purposes. The GMNR considerably contributed to the development of the new Hydrogeological Map of Rome on 2015. Recently, by an agreement between Roma Capitale and ISPRA (Geological Survey of Italy) the monitoring activities have been strengthen, several new wells have been surveyed and all data are inserted and are available in a web-GIS system and an interactive map.

Each monitoring station visible on the interactive map have a link to a graph showing the trend over time of the measured parameters. In this regard, a system has been developed in order to allow the collection and the entry to the central database of investigated data even in real time by means of portable devices (tablet or smartphone), through a survey form. As a whole, this actually allow the field workers to quickly transmit the measured data - piezometric levels and in situ chemical-physical parameters - from the hydrogeological data collection site to a single online central database.

Moreover, recently, thanks to the CARG project (National Geological and Geothematic Cartography), several probes are going to be purchased and to be installed in a selection of the monitoring stations, contributing to the real time data sharing.

With the described agreement related to the GMNR, the survey activities are going to lead to a systematic structuring of information relating to the groundwater of the city of Rome, probably developing the first dedicated urban example in Italy, and contributing to enhance the local groundwater resource knowledge and also to increase public awareness in this regard.