Network of Functional Centres

The network of functional centers consists of the Central Functional Center, located at the Department of Civil Protection, and decentralized functional centers located in the regions and autonomous provinces. Each functional center focuses on forecasting, monitoring and surveillance of weather phenomena in real time with the consequent assessment of the expected effects on people and things in a given territory, contributing, together with the Department of Civil Protection and the Regions, to the management of the National Alerting System.

The activity of the network of functional centers. Each functional center has the task of collecting and sharing with the entire network of Centers a series of data and information from different technological platforms and a dense network of sensors placed on the national territory. Specifically:

• The data collected by the meteo-hydro-pluviometric networks, the National Weather Radar Network and the various satellite platforms available for earth observation;
• Spatial hydrological, geological, geomorphological data and those derived from the landslide monitoring system;
• Meteorological, hydrological, hydrogeological, and hydraulic modeling

On the basis of these data and modelling, the Functional Centres elaborate the probabilistically expected scenarios, also through the use of forecasting models of the effects on the territory. On the basis of these evaluations, the Functional Centres issue bulletins and warnings in which both the evolution of the phenomena and the expected criticality levels on the territory are reported.

The Central Functional Center. The Central Functional Center is located at the operational headquarters of the Department of Civil Protection, and it is through it that the Department, together with the Regions, ensures the coordination of the national warning system. In addition, consistent with the principle of subsidiarity, in cases where the decentralized functional centers are not active or are temporarily not operational, the Central Functional Center performs all operational tasks assigned to them.