The subsoil of the city of Naples: accomplishment of a digital platform for its representation, management and protection

Naples is the third largest Italian city by size and population. Over 75% of its area is urbanized and the development of the city, often disorderly over the centuries, have occurred despite that the city is exposed to numerous geological hazards, namely: the volcanic and seismic hazard associated with a possible reactivation of Vesuvius and Phlegraean Fields volcanic centres; the seismic hazard connected with the  Apennine seismic activity; the landslide hazard due to the geologically immature landscape and the sinkhole hazard associated with the anthropic use of the subsoil. The studies undertaken and commissioned in the past by the Municipal Administration of Naples, starting from those aimed at facing the so-called Naples’ Subsoil Emergency in the early 2000s, have allowed the acquisition of a large amount of geological information relating to the subsoil, which requires a new and more modern data management structure. For this purpose, the Ufficio Servizio Difesa Idrogeologica del Territorio of the Municipality of Naples has started a project aimed at valorising and updating the enormous amount of data in its possession, through the creation of an digital platform aimed at representing the subsoil of the municipal territory. In this work the preliminary results of the project are presented. The objective of the project is to build a dataset of the geological subsoil information, structured by means of a system of coherent and organic relationships, which will concern not only the geological features (stratigraphic logs, geotechnical parameters etc.) but also the anthropic features (man-made cavities, underground services, tunnels etc.) and that will be included, in the future, within a broader digital  platform concerning the housing and underground public facilities. ISPRA, via the Department for the Geological Survey of Italy, has carried out numerous studies in the Neapolitan area in recent years, also in collaboration with the Municipality of Naples. In this context, ISPRA will provide scientific support and data in its possession for the construction of an updated geological model of the subsoil and the revision of the city’s geological map. With the accomplishment of the project, the digital platform of the subsoil of the city of Naples will become the reference geo-informatics tool of the municipal GIS; it will also have a strong participatory value open to all stakeholders, with the possibility of activating exchanges between citizens and institutions aimed at a continuously updating the acquired knowledge.