Region of Sicily: green light to the integration works of the meteorological detection network for civil protection purposes

CAE is the leader company of the Temporary Grouping of Companies that has won the Sicilian tender for the integration of the regional meteorological detection system for civil protection purposes, which will also include LIDAR and cartographic surveys in specific areas of interest.

As you can read in the Technical Report provided by the Region of Sicily, the project originates from the need of the Decentralized Multi-hazard Functional Integrated Centre (CFDMI) to have adequate control and monitoring systems aiming at an effective prevention and real-time control of the meteorological, hydrological and hydraulic phenomena occurring on the regional territory and, consequently, at a mitigation of their effects for civil protection purposes. The effectiveness of this network is based on its consistency, timeliness, efficiency, reliability and redundancy. To date, none of these conditions is fully and adequately met, due to the obsolescence of most of the installed equipment and to its poor distribution; as a matter of fact, 25% of the regional territory is not covered by thermo-pluviometric stations. This entails some knowledge gaps that can become prejudicial in the forecasting phase, as well as in the monitoring and retrospective elaboration phases.

All the provided supplies and services aim at creating a complex meteorological survey system, with a high technological profile, as well as at performing specialized activities and services such as aerial surveys, LIDAR surveys, topographic surveys, mapping, DSM and DTM, in order to create and integrate the already existing Geodatabase. This extension will aim at solving some of the major problems, especially in those parts of the region where, for geological reasons, there is a greater propensity to phenomena of geomorphological instability and flooding, even in small watersheds. In order to guarantee the achievement of all required reliability and efficiency objectives, this system will focus on the principles of integration, redundancy, timeliness and flexibility.

In order to guarantee the highest possible level of integration, a single system will be implemented starting from the network of the OdA (Osservatorio delle Acque - Water Observatory) which, due to implementation criteria and transmission systems, has proved to be suitable for the purposes of civil protection. The network will include both the existing stations and the new ones to be built. The system will have a single UHF radio network and two main control headquarters: the CC.OA (control headquarters of the OdA) and the CC.CF (control headquarters of the CFDMI). This solution will allow the CFDMI to manage all the stations jointly and simultaneously, without the need to overlap separate subsystems or split systems, which would need to be managed with more or less complex integration logics that often prove to be inefficient. The Giampilieri system will also be integrated into the data exchange procedures among the UHF radio stations. Finally, the new headquarters at the CS.SIAS (Secondary Headquarters of the Sicilian Agro-meteorological Information Service) will receive the data from the main CC.OA headquarters, while the data collected by the stations of the SIAS proprietary network which interest the Administration will be integrated and subsequently transmitted to the main CC.OA and CFDMI headquarters.

As far as redundancy is concerned, backup repeaters will be integrated to both all new repeaters and old ones that were not already provided, with prompt management of the exchange between the main equipment and the backup one in case of failure of one of them. Furthermore, a GPRS/UMTS secondary communication system will be integrated.

The overall cycle times of the network will be reduced within 10 minutes, therefore leaving a margin for future network expansions in order to ensure this timeliness in the future. 

Finally, the system will be extremely flexible and open to any potential subsequent expansions; moreover, it will allow to monitor different risk scenarios, in a fully integrated manner, with modular implementations that can be scaled over time. In order to do this, a real-time monitoring and alert system based on a multi-hazard technological platform will be implemented.

The implementation of the system includes:

• supplying and installation of n.225 pluviometric stations
• supplying and installation of n.25 anemometric stations
• supplying and installation of n.14 nivometric stations
• supplying and installation of n.19 new repeaters with backup units and of n.8 backup units for the already existent repeaters that were not already provided
• adaptation of the current UHF band radio interconnection network
• adaptation of the current Control Headquarters (Centrale di Controllo CC.OA)
• supplying and installation of the new Control Headquarters (Centrale di Controllo CC.CF) of the CFDMI
• supplying and installation of the new Secondary Headquarters (Centrale Secondaria CS.SIAS)

The complexity of this project is given by the need to carry out what was planned in order to integrate the already existing and functioning systems, apart from the size of the project itself, which covers the entire regional territory. The technical and organizational skills of CAE will be essential for the success of this project, and everyone in our company is ready for the challenge.

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