ISPRA: hydrogeological instability is growing in Italy

ISPRA, the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, has published the 2021 report on "Hydrogeological instability in Italy". The data, released last March 7, show that compared to 2017 the national area potentially subject to landslides and floods has increased by 4% and 19%. Almost 94% of Italian municipalities are at risk of instability or are subject to coastline erosion, while over 8 million people live in highly dangerous areas. Thus positive signals are coming from the Italian coasts. In fact, after 20 years, in the face of numerous safety measures, the retreat of the coasts has been slowed down which in several karst areas are instead expanding. In 2021 - the ISPRA report also points out - over 540,000 families and 1,300,000 inhabitants lived in landslide risk areas, while there were about 3 million families and almost 7 million inhabitants residing in flood risk areas. The regions with the highest number of people living in the distressed areas are Emilia-Romagna (almost 3 million), Tuscany (over 1 million), Campania (over 580 thousand), Veneto (almost 575 thousand) , Lombardy (over 475 thousand), and Liguria (over 366 thousand). The data and maps mentioned in the report are available on the national IdroGEO platform,(a multilingual and open data APP, accessible from smartphones, tablets, computers.