Natural risk warning: comparison of two methodologies

Abstract

Abstract. The Italian network of "Centri Funzionali" is now reaching operational status both in hydro-meteorological risk forecasting and support to the decision making of administrations that issue natural risk warning. Each centre operates for its district of influence. In order to have a nationwide common standard the National Civil Protection Department proposed a quantitative warning methodology based on the definition of rainfall thresholds correlated to historical damages. In the first phase the thresholds have been defined using two studies that cover all Italy: the VAPI (statistics of extreme rainfall and discharges, see reference) and the AVI (database of historical flood and landslide events and reported damages, see reference). This work presents one year back analysis that compares the new methodology and the one that has been usied since 2000 by the Liguria Region Meteorological Centre with regard to flood warning, pinpointing the performance differences in terms of false and missed alerts.