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Filtering by: Institute for Earth System Predictions

FIUMICINO Project: Morphodynamic and Sediment Transport, Hydrodynamic, and Ecological Characterization of the Physiographic Unit from Capo Linaro to Capo d’Anzio

The project fits into a broad system of observation, monitoring, and analysis of the marine environment that addresses the need to harmonize the protection of marine ecosystems with the proper management and development of coastal area uses. The response of natural systems to variations generated by specific coastal interventions overlaps with the variations induced by climate trends and territorial changes (land use, riverbed interventions, industries) occurring in the relevant basins, generating an overlap of effects that modulate the evolution of the receiving sea area and coasts on different spatial and temporal scales. The study area is dominated by the presence of the Tiber River, which, being the main watercourse of central Italy, significantly influences the sediment balance in the area and the distribution of biocoenoses. The same area will be affected by a series of activities related to the construction of new port infrastructures. To analyze such a complex system and to separate as accurately as possible the variations induced by a project from the evolution of the system itself, it is therefore essential to know the physical and dynamic characteristics of the study area and the current environmental state, through an in-depth analysis of the main impacts and pressures affecting the entire area and its habitats. This project aims to study the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the area between Capo Linaro and Capo d’Anzio through a multidisciplinary study that involves the integration of observational data and numerical modeling and to support the development of the works and

GoNEXUS – Innovative tools and solutions for governing the water-energy-food-ecosystems NEXUS under global change

GoNEXUS aims to develop a framework for designing and assessing innovative solutions for an efficient and sustainable coordinated governance of the water-energy-food-ecosystems (WEFE) nexus. Solutions will combine policy changes and soft path options with technical and infrastructure measures for a more resilient future. To achieve this objective, the project will build a powerful model toolbox and creative participatory Nexus Dialogues. The model toolbox will include forefront global/continental and river basin models, innovatively establishing a functional link between them. At global and continental scales, the toolbox will include the individual WEFE element models CAPRI (food, agri-environment), LISFLOOD-EPIC and PCR-GLOBWB (water), PRIMES and PROMETHEUS (energy), GLOBIO (environment), and GEM-E3 (macroeconomics), some of them used in EU policies. River basin models will include nested strategic WEFE management models (including behavioral modelling) and hydrological simulation models to expand the analysis of resilience at basin scale, including impacts on ecosystems. Nexus Dialogues will co- design scenarios, models, and solutions for a joint governance of the WEFE nexus. The solutions will be evaluated using the model toolbox through a set of novel nexus indicators and criteria (based on relevant SDGs metrics) to assess trade-offs between water status, and food and energy security. GoNEXUS will be applied at global and EU levels and to six river basins representing different features and WEFE challenges in Europe (Danube, Como, Jucar, Tagus-Segura) and Africa (Zambezi, Senegal). The innovative combination of models and Nexus Dialogues will provide more accurate evaluations of future scenarios, enabling knowledge sharing and brokerage, and improving WEFE

IDEATION: InlanD watErs in the digitAl Twin OceaN

IDEATION (InlanD watErs in the digitAl Twin OceaN) is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme. IDEATION is based on a cross-border cooperation, involvement, and commitment of stakeholders at European level by following the Water-oriented Living Labs (WoLLs) approach. Stakeholders will be engaged via Multi-Stakeholder Forums (MSF), using a range of different engagement methodologies (e.g., focus groups, workshops, interviews, questionnaires) depending on goals of the engagement and specificities of the context. A comprehensive review will be performed to make an open knowledge inventory for inland water systems (OpenKIWAS). IDEATION will co-design the IDEATION reference architecture defining a set of building blocks, interfaces and standards to make data, models and technologies interoperable and integrable with the Digital Twin Ocean (DTO). Putting together all the results from the MSF, OpenKIWAS, and the IDEATION reference architecture, a roadmap for the integration of inland waters in the Digital Twin Ocean will be created providing a preliminary breakdown of the work, with priorities of implementation, into a stepped approach.

interTwin – An interdisciplinary Digital Twin Engine for Science

interTwin co-designs and implements the prototype of an interdisciplinary Digital Twin Engine (DTE), an open-source platform that provides generic and tailored software components for modelling and simulation to integrate application-specific Digital Twins (DTs). Its specifications and implementation are based on a co-designed conceptual model – the DTE blueprint architecture – guided by the principles of open standards and interoperability. The ambition is to develop a common approach to the implementation of DTs that is applicable across the whole spectrum of scientific disciplines and beyond to facilitate developments and collaboration.  Co-design involves DT use cases for High energy physics, Radio astronomy, Astroparticle physics, Climate research, and Environmental monitoring, whose complex requirements are expected to significantly advance the state of the art of modelling and simulation using heterogeneous distributed digital infrastructures, advanced workflow composition, real-time data management and processing, quality and uncertainty tracing of models, data fusion and analytics. As a result, a consolidation of software technologies supporting research will emerge.  The validation of the technology with multiple infrastructure facilities will boost the accessibility of users to technological capacity and the support of AI uptake in research. interTwin builds on the capacities of experts from pan-European research infrastructures and the long tail of science, an Open-Source Community of technology providers that will deliver TRL 6/7 capabilities to implement the interdisciplinary DTE, experts of the European Centre of Excellence in Exascale Computing, and infrastructure providers from the EGI Federation, PRACE and EuroHPC supporting data and compute intensive science. interTwin key exploitable results will

IRIDE Lot 1

The IRIDE program is an innovative project undertaken by the Italian government in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) to leverage resources from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). Phase 2 of IRIDE Lot 1 started in October 2024 following the successful implementation of the IRIDE Precursor Phase. The main purpose of the project is to deliver an operational portfolio of geospatial services and develop digital tools for End and Pilot users within the Thematic Services S1-Coastal and Marine Monitoring, S2- Air Quality, S5- Hydro-Meteorological-Climate, S6- WaterManagement. The operational services allow mapping, monitoring and forecasting of various characteristics of coastal areas (including geomorphological, land use, flooding, habitats etc.) as well as operational model validation, operational air quality monitoring and forecast, pollutant emissions monitoring and assessment, re-analysis of air quality at national scale, hydro-meterological mapping and monitoring atmospheric structure, greenhouse gases and others essential climate variables monitoring, lightening monitoring, flood forecasting and sediment management, etc.

IRIDE Lot 4

The IRIDE program is an innovative project undertaken by the Italian government, in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA), to leverage resources from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). Following the successful implementation of the IRIDE Precursor Phase, the Phase 2 started in October 2024. The main purpose of the project is to deliver an operational portfolio of geospatial services and develop digital tools for End and Pilot users within the Thematic Services S7-Emergency and S8-Security. The operational services allow mapping, monitoring and forecasting of critical events such as earthquakes, floods, extreme weather events, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, landslides, avalanches, mudflows, tsunamis, and other natural or man-made disasters. Additionally, the program includes Maritime Surveillance, focusing on oil spill detection, sea pollution management, and vessel tracking, ensuring comprehensive support for emergency and security needs.

LIFE21-IPC-IT-LIFE CLIMAX PO | CLIMate Adaptation for the PO river basin district

CLIMAX PO is a project funded by a LIFE grant of the European Commission. CLIMAX PO brings together most national and regional and some of the local authorities playing a role in implementing the Italian strategy on adaptation in the Po River Basin, an area of 74.000 km2 , with 3.200 local authorities, 16 million inhabitant and generating 40% of the Italian GDP.  CLIMAX PO is led by the National Po River Basin District Authority (ADBPO) chaired directly by the Italian Minister for the Environment and responsible for the implementation of the NAS at district level. The consortium covers the whole geographical river basin, all levels of Governance (National, Regional, Local) and necessary competences with 3 major research institutes on board.            

LIQUIDICE: LinkIng and QUantifying the Impacts of climate change on inlanD ICE, snow cover, and permafrost on water resources and society in vulnerable regions

Recognizing the central role played by snow, ice and permafrost in the global climate system, the LIQUIDICE project joins expert cryospheric observers and modelers to: i) comprehensively re-assess the past and future century-plus of climate-induced high impact changes to the Greenland ice sheet and climate vulnerable locations across the Alps, Norway, High Mountain Asia (HMA) and Svalbard, including permafrost areas and their ecosystems; ii) develop new, expanded and harmonized data from satellite Earth Observation (EO) and ground stations; iii) use these data to improve and test a hierarchy of ice sheet and glacier models with Earth System Models (ESMs); iv) through these steps, yield new process understanding, and ultimately v) inform water resource, hydropower, and socio-economic strategies through clear and transparent communication of results and uncertainties. The project’s strengths lie in new multidisciplinary collaborations across 18 research institutions, from eight European countries (Poland, Italy, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Norway, United Kingdom) and India, encompassing expertise in field observations, satellite EO techniques, ESM development and application, and socio-economic analysis. Key deliverables include a) FAIR-principled new multi-decade data catalogues of multi-regional snow water equivalent and a 44-year EO-derived albedo record; b) assessments of impact of model resolution and degree of coupling on results; c) refined past and future glacier, ice cap and Greenland ice sheet freshwater fluxes to oceans and global sea level rise with indirect constraint on Antarctica; d) new hydrological simulations for HMA; e) a new framework for a Water Discharge Impact Assessments; f) socio-economic integrated risk and adaptation assessments;

MEDEWSA – Mediterranean and pan-European forecast and Early Warning System against natural hazards

Natural hazards, such as extreme weather events, are exacerbated by climate change. As a result, emergency responses are becoming more protracted, expensive, frequent, and stretching limited available resources. This is especially apparent in rapidly warming regions. MedEWSa addresses these challenges by providing novel solutions to ensure timely, precise, and actionable impact and finance forecasting, and early warning systems (EWS) that support the rapid deployment of first responders to vulnerable areas. 

MELTED – MachinE Learning for arcTic ice prEDiction

The Arctic region plays a vital role in the global climate system, it is strongly affected by climate change, and in turn one of its drivers. The Arctic is warming four times faster than the global average, transitioning into an entirely different climate than a few decades ago (Legg, 2021). Satellite data reveal that the September sea ice extent declined by ~13% per decade since 1979 causing major changes in the oceanic heat flux. Changes in the Arctic sea ice impact extreme weather and climate events beyond the Arctic region, favouring extreme Northern Hemisphere winters (Kretschmer et al., 2016) or wetter European summers (Screen, 2013). Arctic changes have a substantial socio-economical relevance (e.g. indigenous communities, shipping and tourism, fisheries), as well as a geopolitical dimension, given possible shipping routes and natural resources exploitation. Understanding the causes of these changes is thus of paramount importance yet substantial gaps still exist. Moreover, numerous studies have demonstrated the limitations of current-generation climate models in accurately representing essential aspects of polar climates, such as Arctic sea ice loss (Wang et al., 2016) or water mass changes (Ilicak et al., 2016).

MISSION: MaritIme juSt in time optimiSatION Interoperable Port Call and Voyage Optimization tool

The MISSION project will eliminate bottlenecks of the overall maritime supply chain creating significant economic advantages for direct stakeholders and environmental benefits for society. By enabling collaboration among stakeholders and allowing ship schedules to be synchronised, ship operations and port services will be optimised, thus enhancing the efficiency of maritime operations and reducing the fuel consumption and GHG emissions. The project will demonstrate the benefits and challenges of MISSION specifically for three shipping segments, Tramp (bulk and tanker) RoRo, and container ship traffic, connecting ports in the European seas of Spain, Italy, Greece and Lithuania. MISSION’s port call optimisation and end-to-end orchestration of different traffic types will be built on data sharing platforms, with reference to harmonised standards and provide application programming interfaces for interoperability.

NECCTON- New Copernicus capability for trophic ocean networks


The ocean’s biodiversity supports the livelihoods of over three billion people, providing vital services, including food and nutrient cycling. However marine policy and resource management do not yet consider the latest scientific advances, even when the state-of- the-art operational models of the European Copernicus Marine Service (CMEMS) are used. The project’s objective is to enable CMEMS to deliver novel products that inform marine biodiversity conservation and food resources management, by fusing new data into innovative ecosystem models that integrate biological and abiotic components, habitats, and stressors of marine ecosystems. NECCTON will inter-link new models in the CMEMS systems, thus building novel capacities to simulate higher-trophic-levels, benthic habitats, pollutants, and deliver projections of climate change impacts. We will develop and exploit new data-processing chains, supporting CMEMS’ use of novel ecosystem observations, including new hyperspectral data from satellites, as well as available acoustic, pollution and omics data. We will fuse these new data and models by using innovative machine-learning algorithms to improve models and data assimilation methods. These developments will be applied in thirteen case studies, co-designed with fisheries and conservation managers as part of our pathway-to-impact, resulting in the demonstration of Technological Readiness Level 6 of NECCTON products. The project objectives will be achieved by a team of twenty-three world-class organizations with track records for all the key project components. It includes the CMEMS Entrusted Entity and core developers, who will promote the final uptake of NECCTON by CMEMS. On project completion, NECCTON will provide CMEMS with the scientific and technical

NEXOGENESIS – Facilitating the next generation of effective and intelligent water-related policies utilising artificial intelligence and reinforcement learning to assess the water-energy-food ecosystem (WEFE) nexus

Water, energy, food, and ecosystems (WEFE) are interconnected, comprising a coherent system (nexus) dominated by complexity and modulated by climatic and socio-economic drivers. Resource constraints, and their interconnectedness could hamper economic development, including optimal trade, market and policy solutions. NEXOGENESIS offers a coherent WEFE nexus framework for the assessment of potential impact pathways of implementing new policy objectives (WFD, RED, CAP, SDGs, Paris Agreement) in the nexus, including: (i) biophysical and socio-economic modelling; (ii) stakeholder engagement together with; (iii) validation of NEXOGENESIS outputs and; (iv) use of the latest artificial intelligence techniques.

ObsSea4Clim: Ocean observations and indicators for climate and assessments

ObsSea4Clim brings together key European actors within ocean observing science, climate assessment, Earth System modelling, data sharing and standards, with users of oceanographic products and services to deliver an improved observation framework based on Essential Ocean & Climate Variables (EOV/ECVs).

OceanICU – Ocean-ICU Improving Carbon Understanding


The Ocean plays a crucial role in the global C cycle, taking up approximately 25% of the CO2 we emit to the atmosphere, and thus slowing the rate of climate change. The future trajectory of this sink will affect the timing and intensity of the modifications to human processes that we need to undertake in order to stabilise atmospheric CO2 at 450ppm. Our ability to measure and model this sink is limited (evidenced by significant discrepancies between measured and modelled C uptake) with the current frontier area of research being a suite of biological processes related to higher trophic level behaviour within the so called biological C pump. This involvement of higher organisms suggests that human activities (fishing, energy and mineral extraction) has the capacity to affect the ocean C sink however we lack the ability to quantitatively link direct human pressures and ocean C storage. Ocean ICU will measure these key processes and evaluate their overall significance, transferring those that are important into models that inform the IPCC process and in this way contribute to resolving the observed model data mismatch of Ocean C sink estimates. We will use the fundamental knowledge we acquire around biological systems to evaluate the ability of human interventions in the ocean to alter the carbon cycle and produce management tools that allow the tension between resource extraction and C storage to be addressed. This component will involve extensive dialogue with end users and stakeholders and lead to a Decision Support Tool that will

ORACS: Ocean Reanalysis Algorithms for Climate Studies

This contract will develop improved algorithms to produce long term ocean reanalyses in the presence of varying observational networks. It will be focused on consistency of climate relevant metrics across 2 periods of increasing observational coverage, in the 1950’s and in the 1980s-90s as altimeter observations become available. The role of different atmospheric forcing and riverine inputs will be tested and the ensemble error covariance approaches suitable for both sparse will be developed and more dense observing networks. It will also address the detection of bias in the assimilated results and make recommendations on how best to treat bias under varying observational conditions. Finally new post-processed smoothing methods to more fully use observations and to spread information back to influence more sparsely observed periods will be applied. A set of Recommendations will be made to CMEMS to aid in the production of a climate- consistent long period ocean reanalysis in the final report.

PHAROS: Lighthouse for Atlantic and Arctic Basin

PHAROS is an EU-funded project, led by the Canary Islands Ocean Platform (PLOCAN), and implemented by a consortium of 24 organizations, which aims to provide nature-based solutions for restoring ecosystems and biodiversity while tackling climate change and human impacts in the Atlantic and Arctic maritime regions. These goals align with the European Union’s ambitious Ocean Mission objectives. The PHAROS project aligns with the European Union’s Ocean Mission by focusing on protecting and restoring marine ecosystems and biodiversity, eliminating pollution, and achieving a sustainable, carbon-neutral, and circular blue economy by 2030.

PIISA: Piloting Innovative Insurance Solutions for Adaptation

PIISA is a project funded by HORIZON Europe RIA (Research and Innovation Action) aiming to develop and deploy a range of insurance innovations that incite households and firms to adapt proactively and sufficiently for their own sake and their neighborhood’s sake. PIISA incites public authorities to set up adaptation and create adaptation promoting conditions. PIISA co-develops climate resilient insurance portfolios and develops solutions for sharing losses and climate risk data.

PNRR-HPC – “SPOKE 4 EARTH & CLIMATE”: National Centre for HPC, Big Data and Quantum Computing

Within Spoke 4, the scientific activity of CMCC, and of the Spoke affiliated partners, will be mainly aimed at developing a shared interdisciplinary framework for advanced Earth System Models and numerical experimentations. The framework will be focused on digital infrastructures and efficient workflows to streamline the production, facilitate the training, accelerate the understanding, and improve the quality of climate simulations and predictions.

RENOVATE: Ecosystem Approach to the Evaluation and Testing of Compensation and Mitigation Actions in the Marine Environment: The Case of the Civitavecchia Port Hub

RENOVATE is an innovative experimental project whose main objective is the recovery of marine ecosystem functions and services impacted by the expansion of the Civitavecchia Port Hub. This includes the testing of restoration and mitigation interventions for the priority habitat 1120* and some biocoenoses of habitat 1170, as well as for two species of high natural and ecological importance: Corallium rubrum and Pinna nobilis. RENOVATE is the most ambitious ‘marine habitat restoration’ project carried out in Italy and probably in Europe. It envisions a series of interventions based on an innovative, holistic approach aimed at achieving the medium/long-term recovery goals of the functionality of impacted habitats and species, equivalent to what was lost due to the expansion of the Port Hub. RENOVATE is a project that will represent the state of the art in terms of scientific and technological innovation, and therefore places a central focus on the application of the most modern scientific criteria used internationally, with particular reference to the ecosystem approach and Nature-Based Solutions.

SASIP: The Scale-Aware Sea Ice Project


An international collaborative project to better understand the impact of amplified warming in polar regions, through the development of a new sea ice modelling paradigm. Through SASIP, the Scale-Aware Sea Ice Project, we propose to develop a truly innovative, scale-aware continuum sea ice model for climate research; one that faithfully represents sea ice dynamics and thermodynamics and that is physically sound, data-adaptive, highly parallelized and computationally efficient. SASIP will exploit large datasets from both granular process models and remote sensing to constrain sea ice properties and optimize continuum model parameters, jointly using data assimilation and machine learning methods. Coupling this multi-scale modeling framework to an ocean mixed-layer model, we will open up a new regime for polar oceanography via an examination of currently unresolved or poorly understood ice–ocean interactions across physical scales. In this systematic merger of models, observations, and numerical techniques, SASIP will reform sea ice modeling, a crucial leap needed to improve regional and larger-scale predictions of polar climate. Through the further development of neXtSIM and the MEB rheological framework, SASIP will build a data-constrained model that is rigorously based on sea ice solid-like physics. This model will allow improved high resolution and large- scale predictions of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, and the propagation of sea ice related climate feedbacks. Employing hybrid data assimilation and machine learning approaches as a native part of the model architecture will allow for objective combinations of model and data. Ultimately, SASIP will lead to reduced uncertainties related to the impact of

SCEWERO: STRENGTHENING THE RESEARCH CAPACITIES FOR EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS IN ROMANIA

The SCEWERO project will be developed by a consortium of 5 organizations from 4 countries: Babeș-Bolyai University (UBB), a research institution located in Romania as a widening country and acting as coordinator, three top-class leading partners, Fondazione Centro Euro-Mediterraneo Sui Cambiamenti Climatici (IT), Universiteit Antwerpen (BE), and Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen (DE), and a private partner (SME), Indeco Soft (RO) aiming to improve the excellence capacity in research, to raise the scientific reputation, research profile and attractiveness through networking, and strengthening research management capacity and administrative skills of the UBB team.

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