Organization:
Regione Basilicata – Regional Civil Protection - Regional Functional Center

Brief description of the Organization launching the Challenge:
The Basilicata Region – Civil Protection Office, through the Decentralised Functional Centre (CFD), carries out operational activities for monitoring, forecasting, and managing natural hazards, with a particular focus on hydro-meteorological risks. The CFD supports the regional and national civil protection system in early warning activities, bulletin production, and emergency management, contributing to decision-making processes through the analysis and integration of data from multiple observational and forecasting sources. Its competencies include real-time monitoring of phenomena, risk assessment, and support to planning and resource management in both ordinary and emergency conditions.

Region:
Basilicata (Italy)

Description of the Challenge:
The Basilicata Region, in synergy with Fondazione CIMA – a Competence Centre of the Italian Department of Civil Protection – proposes this challenge with the objective of strengthening operational capacities for water resources monitoring and management in a territorial context highly exposed to drought impacts and increasing climate variability. The initiative builds on activities already initiated at the regional level, with particular reference to the San Giuliano reservoir, and addresses the need for reliable, updated, and integrated information on reservoir filling conditions.
The specific need consists in the development and implementation of an operational service based on high-resolution Earth Observation (EO) satellite data, capable of providing near-real-time information on water surface extent and reservoir filling dynamics. The service should enable the generation of time series of water availability indicators and the timely detection of anomalies, supporting hydrological drought monitoring activities and early warning systems.
A key element of the challenge is the integration of these data and services into the myDEWETRA operational platform, already adopted within the Civil Protection system, in order to make satellite-derived information readily accessible and usable in decision-making processes. In this context, full interoperability with existing systems is required, as well as the provision of data aggregated at daily and monthly temporal scales.
From a technical perspective, the solution relies on optical data from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 constellation, combined with methodologies that integrate multiple spectral water indices and automated quality-control procedures, aimed at minimising the impact of clouds, cloud shadows, and other sources of uncertainty and ensuring the reliability of the generated information.
The operational objective is to effectively support water resources management activities and decision-making processes within the Civil Protection system, enhancing the capability to identify critical periods, support planning, and strengthen early warning systems. This approach is particularly relevant for Mediterranean regions, where water availability strongly depends on reservoir systems and where the frequency and severity of drought events are expected to increase due to climate change.

Your Challenge in one question:
How can we estimate the extent and availability of water resources in remote or otherwise inaccessible areas of a territory?

Topics:

• Earth Observation (EO),
• AI & Data Analytics,
• Climate Adaptation & Resilience,
• Natural Resources Management (Water, Soil, Forest...),
• Emergency & Disaster Management,
• Civil Protection & Security

Expected role of Service Provider:

• R&D,
• Software & Tool Development,
• Data Supply & Processing,
• System Integration in the PA platforms,
• Consultancy & Feasibility Study