Description and objectives

I

The project tackles the problem of ground instability hazards for the first time using mathematical and computational tools. The main objectives are: to quantify instability factors, develop a neural system for forecasting, and create a prototype with temporal extension.

The construction of a computer tool capable of returning geolocalised hazard data for any time interval selected by the user would lead to advance knowledge (and awareness) of the eventualities and probabilities that a certain urban or territorial development choice is subject to hydrogeological risk. The social and economic implications of the project, as well as the scientific and technical ones, are clear because it could potentially save huge resources that are too often used for corrective or emergency measures, if not rescue operations. Ideally, a powerful tool for planning the country’s urban and territorial development would be made available to the community (specialists, companies and institutions, but also ordinary citizens and associations).

The first objective of the project is to quantify the factors controlling soil instability, interpreted as mathematical or formal logical notation of observations, assessments, surveys and opinions that have accumulated over the years and constitute an invaluable “corpus” of data which, however, in their present form, cannot be used or interpreted by a computer system.

The second objective is the configuration and architecture of a future neural system that is continuously fed with new observational, climate prediction and sensor inputs, so that it is able to identify patterns in spatial data, study time series to extrapolate them to future times, and provide predictions and hazard assessments in a very short time and with objective methods.