Italy creates AI assistant to help Italians assess landslide risks
Climate change is increasing the frequency of stronger storms, amplifying risks of landslides and floods and spreading them to areas that were historically less exposed, environmental research and protection institute ISPRA said.
The share of land exposed to serious landslide risks rose to 9.5% last year from 8.7% in 2021, it said, with about 2.2% of the population, or about 1.3 million people, living in these areas.
"Italy remains among the European countries most exposed to the risk of landslides," the institute said, mentioning recent deadly natural disasters such as the 2022 landslide on the island of Ischia off Naples and the floods in Emilia-Romagna in 2023.
The new AI assistant would help users navigate the existing IdroGEO public platform of maps and updated data on instability, providing information and answering questions, the institute said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
16 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Ancient warning mysteriously appears on Hawaiian beach mere days before catastrophic megaquake
Mysterious symbols carved into Hawaii's beach have reappeared after a decade, and they may have brought an ancient warning from 1,000 years ago. The series of 26 petroglyphs, dating back to between 1000 and 1400 AD, emerged after the tide receded along the shoreline of Pōkaʻī Bay in Waianae around July 23. The petroglyphs, mainly showing human-like stick figures, may have been a visual record of spiritual or historical events, but US archeologists said their exact meaning remains unclear due to a lack of written context. Native Hawaiians, however, believe the symbols convey an ancestral warning about environmental changes, including oncoming disasters caused by climate change. Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner Glen Kila said: 'It's telling the community that the ocean is rising.' On Tuesday, an 8.8 magnitude quake struck Russia's coast, leading to more tsunami alerts and the region's largest volcano erupting hours later. The earthquake was the sixth most powerful on record, and the strongest in Russia's Kamchatka region since 1952. The major earthquake sent tsunami waves to the coast of northern California and Washington on Wednesday morning, with a 3.6-foot wave being the highest recorded along the US West Coast. It's the first time the full set of 26 petroglyphs - carvings in rock surfaces - have been visible on the island of Oahu since 2016. Seasonal ocean swells regularly peel away the sand covering the panel. However, these seasonal conditions typically only reveal parts of the ancient carvings between May and November. The entire collection along Pōkaʻī Bay stretches about 115 feet, and has survived intense summer storms and even hurricanes before the changing ocean waves revealed them for the first time in a decade. According to Kila, the unearthed petroglyphs may have been created by an early Polynesian settlement in Waianae over 1,000 years ago. Laura Gilda, an archaeologist with the US Army Garrison Hawaii, gave a more conservative estimate of approximately 600 years. Visitors to the beach were easily able to spot the giant symbols during low tide, when gentler waves washed over the green algae growing on the sandstone rock. Archaeologists noted that 18 of the 26 petroglyphs appear to be anthropomorphic stick figures, simple drawings of human-like forms using lines to represent bodies, limbs, and heads. Eight are believed to show male genitalia, but it's unclear if the rest are showing men or women. Hawaii was under a tsunami warning following the earthquake that hit Russia. Locals fled the coast in fear of five-foot waves Kila told the Associated Press that the panel appears to be telling a religious or ceremonial story. Based on the teaching of the native Hawaiians, the largest of the petroglyph figures, which has one hand with fingers raised and the other pointing down, depicts the rising and setting of the sun. 'My interpretation, just by looking at it, was an interpretation of Maui, the demigod, Maui,' Kila previously explained during a 2017 interview. Native Hawaiians have described Maui as a legendary figure in their mythology, known for his great size and strength. According to local legends, he pulled the Hawaiian islands out from the sea with his fishhook in one story and snared the sun in a different tale. Kila added that the fingers on the largest petroglyph's raised hand appear to point east, just like the rising sun. 'It's a religious symbol. Like what we have for Christianity, the cross or the other symbols,' the cultural practitioner continued. While there doesn't appear to be a direct connection between the recent megaquakes and the reappearance of the petroglyphs, native Hawaiians believe their return could be a sign that more natural disasters are nearing. Hawaii's Big Island and Oahu were both under a tsunami advisory Wednesday morning, but evacuation orders were quickly lifted. The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency advised residents to remain at least 100 feet away from inland waterways or marinas connected to the ocean due to wave surges and possible flooding.
BBC News
17 hours ago
- BBC News
Why plane turbulence is becoming more frequent
BBC Listen to this article being read Andrew Davies was on his way to New Zealand to work on a Doctor Who exhibition, for which he was project manager. The first leg of his flight from London to Singapore was fairly smooth. Then suddenly the plane hit severe turbulence. "Being on a rollercoaster is the only way I can describe it," he recalls. "After being pushed into my seat really hard, we suddenly dropped. My iPad hit me in the head, coffee went all over me. There was devastation in the cabin with people and debris everywhere. "People were crying and [there was] just disbelief about what had happened." Mr Davies was, he says, "one of the lucky ones". Other passengers were left with gashes and broken bones. Geoff Kitchen, who was 73, died of a heart attack. Death as a consequence of turbulence is extremely rare. There are no official figures but there are estimated to have been roughly four deaths since 1981. Injuries, however, tell a different story. In the US alone, there have been 207 severe injuries - where an individual has been admitted to hospital for more than 48 hours - since 2009, official figures from the National Transportation Safety Board show. (Of these, 166 were crew and may not have been seated.) But as climate change shifts atmospheric conditions, experts warn that air travel could become bumpier: temperature changes and shifting wind patterns in the upper atmosphere are expected to increase the frequency and intensity of severe turbulence. "We can expect a doubling or tripling in the amount of severe turbulence around the world in the next few decades," says Professor Paul Williams, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Reading. "For every 10 minutes of severe turbulence experienced now, that could increase to 20 or 30 minutes." So, if turbulence does get more intense, could it become more dangerous too - or are there clever ways that airlines can better "turbulence-proof" their planes? Severe turbulence is defined as when the up and down movements of a plane going through disturbed air exert more than 1.5g-force on your body - enough to lift you out of your seat if you weren't wearing a seatbelt. Estimates show that there are around 5,000 incidents of severe-or-greater turbulence every year, out of a total of more than 35 million flights that now take off globally. Of the severe injuries caused to passengers flying throughout 2023 - almost 40% were caused by turbulence, according to the annual safety report by the International Civil Aviation Organization. The route between the UK and the US, Canada and the Caribbean is among the areas known to have been affected. Over the past 40 years, since satellites began observing the atmosphere, there has been a 55% increase in severe turbulence over the North Atlantic. But the frequency of turbulence is projected to increase in other areas too according to a recent study - among them, parts of East Asia, North Africa, North Pacific, North America and the Middle East. The knock-on effect of climate change There are three main causes of turbulence: convective (clouds or thunderstorms), orographic (air flow around mountainous areas) and clear-air (changes in wind direction or speed). Each type could bring severe turbulence. Convective and orographic are often more avoidable - it is the clear-air turbulence that, as the name might imply, cannot be seen. Sometimes it seemingly comes out of nowhere. KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV /AFP via Getty Climate change is a major factor in driving up both convective and clear-air turbulence. While the relationship between climate change and thunderstorms is complex, a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture - and that extra heat and moisture combine to make more intense thunderstorms. Linking this back to turbulence — convective turbulence is created by the physical process of air rising and falling in the atmosphere, specifically within clouds. And you won't find more violent up and downdrafts than in cumulonimbus, or thunderstorm clouds. This was the cause of the severe turbulence on Andrew Davies's journey back in 2024. A report by Singapore's Transport Safety Investigation Bureau found that the plane was "likely flying over an area of developing convective activity" over south Myanmar, leading to "19 seconds of extreme turbulence that included a drop of 178 feet in just under five seconds". One study from the US published in the Science journal in 2014 showed that for 1C increase in global temperature, lightning strikes increase by 12%. Captain Nathan Davies, a commercial airline pilot, says: "I have noticed more large storm cells spreading 80 miles plus in diameter in the last few years, something you'd expect to be rare." But he adds: "The large cumulonimbus clouds are easy to spot visually unless embedded within other clouds, so we can go around them." Clear-air turbulence could also soon rise. It is caused by disturbed air in and around the jet stream, (a fast-moving wind at around six miles in the atmosphere, which is the same height as where planes cruise). Wind speeds in the jet stream travelling from west to east across the Atlantic can vary from 160mph to 250mph. There is colder air to the north and warmer air to the south: this temperature difference and change in winds is useful for airliners to use as a tailwind to save time and fuel. But it also creates the turbulent air. "Climate change is warming the air to the south of the jet stream more than the air to the north so that temperature difference is being made stronger," explains Prof Williams. "Which in turn is driving a stronger jet stream." 'It should worry us all' The increase in severe turbulence - enough to lift you out of your seat - could potentially bring more incidents of injury, or possibly death in the most severe cases. And some passengers are concerned. For Mr Davies, the prospect of more turbulence is worrying. "A lot. Not just for me, but my children too," he explains. "I'm pleased there hasn't been an incident as severe as mine but I think it should worry us all". More than a fifth of UK adults say they are scared of flying, according to a recent YouGov survey, and worsening turbulence could make journeys even more of a nightmare for these people. As Wendy Barker, a nervous flyer from Norfolk, told me: "More turbulence to me equals more chance of something going wrong and less chance of survival." Aircraft wings are, however, designed to fly through turbulent air. As Chris Keane, a former pilot and now ground-school instructor says, "you won't believe how flexible a wing is. In a 747 passenger aircraft, under 'destructive' testing, the wings are bent upwards by some 25 degrees before they snap, which is really extreme and something that will never happen, even in the most severe turbulence." For airlines, however, there is a hidden concern: that is the economic costs of more turbulence. The hidden cost of turbulence AVTECH, a tech company that monitors climate and temperature changes - and works with the Met Office to help warn pilots of turbulence - suggests that the costs can range from £180,000 to £1.5 million per airline annually. This includes the costs of having to check and maintain aircraft after severe turbulence, compensation costs if a flight has to be diverted or delayed, and costs associated with being in the wrong location. Eurocontrol, a civil-military organisation that helps European aviation understand climate change risks, says that diverting around turbulence-producing storms can have a wider impact - for example, if lots of aircraft are having to change flight paths, airspace can get more crowded in certain areas. "[This] increases workload for pilots and air traffic controllers considerably," says a Eurocontrol spokesperson. Having to fly around storms also means extra fuel and time. In 2019 for example, Eurocontrol says bad weather "forced airlines to fly one million extra kilometres, producing 19,000 extra tonnes of CO2." With extreme weather predicted to increase, they expect flights will need to divert around bad weather such as storms and turbulence even more by 2050. "Further driving up the costs to airlines, passengers and [increasing] their carbon footprint." How airlines are turbulence-proofing Forecasting turbulence has got better in recent years and while it is not perfect, Prof Williams suggests we can correctly forecast about 75% of clear-air turbulence. "Twenty years ago it was more like 60% so thanks to better research that figure is going up and up over time," he says. Aircraft have weather radar that will pick up storms ahead. As Capt Davies explains, "Before a flight, most airlines will produce a flight plan that details areas of turbulence likely throughout the route, based on computer modelling." It is not 100% accurate, but "it gives a very good idea combined with other aircraft and Air Traffic Control reports once we are en-route". Southwest Airlines in the US recently decided to end cabin service earlier, at 18,000ft instead of the previous 10,000ft. By having the crew and passengers seated with belts on ready for landing at this altitude, Southwest Airlines suggests it will cut turbulence-related injuries by 20%. Also last year, Korean Airlines decided to stop serving noodles to its economy passengers as it had reported a doubling of turbulence since 2019, which raised the risk of passengers getting burned. From owls to AI: extreme measures Some studies have taken turbulence-proofing even further, and looked at alternative ways to build wings. Veterinarians and engineers have studied how a barn owl flies so smoothly in gusty winds, and discovered wings act like a suspension and stabilise the head and torso when flying through disturbed air. The study published in the Royal Society proceedings in 2020 concluded that "a suitably tuned, hinged-wing design could also be useful in small-scale aircraft…helping reject gusts and turbulence". Separately, a start-up in Austria called Turbulence Solutions claims to have created turbulence cancelling technology for light aircraft, where a sensor detects turbulent air and sends a signal to a flap on the wing which counteracts that turbulence. These can reduce moderate turbulence by 80% in light aircraft, according to the company's CEO. NurPhoto via Getty Then there are those arguing that AI could be a solution. Fourier Adaptive Learning and Control (FALCON) is a type of technology being researched at the California Institute of Technology that learns how turbulent air flows across a wing in real-time. It also anticipates the turbulence, giving commands to a flap on the wing which then adjusts to counteract it. However Finlay Asher, an aerospace engineer and member of Safe Landing, a community of aviation workers calling for a more sustainable future in aviation, explained that these types of technology are some time away. "[They're] unlikely to appear on large commercial aircraft within the next couple of decades." But even if turbulence does become more frequent, and more severe, experts argue this isn't cause for worry. "It's generally nothing more than annoying," says Captain Davies. But it might mean more time sitting down, with the seat-belt fastened. Andrew Davies has already learnt this the hard way: "I do get a lot more nervous and don't look forward to flying like I used to," he admits. "But I won't let it define me. "The moment I sit down, my seat belt goes on and if I do need to get up, I pick my moment - then I'm quickly back in my seat, buckled up again." Top Image credit: Ivan-balvan via GETTY BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day. And we showcase thought-provoking content from across BBC Sounds and iPlayer too. You can send us your feedback on the InDepth section by clicking on the button below. Aviation accidents and incidents Singapore Air travel Climate change Technology
The Guardian
20 hours ago
- The Guardian
Hundreds evacuated after series of rockfalls in Italy's Brenta Dolomites
Hundreds of hikers and tourists were evacuated and dozens of trails closed after a series of rockfalls on the slopes of Cima Falkner in the Brenta Dolomites in the north of Italy, as experts warned of a sharp rise in landslides in the area linked to thawing permafrost. In recent days, visitors reported hearing loud booms followed by rockfalls and thick clouds of dust rising from Monte Pelmo in the Val di Zoldo after rocky pinnacles broke away and crashed down into the valley below in the municipality of Selva di Cadore in Italy's Belluno province. Another collapse was recorded on Cima Falkner, where experts say the entire area is undergoing a process of erosion linked to rising temperatures and the wider climate emergency. No one was injured and the falling debris came to a stop higher up the mountain. 'Multiple rockfalls have occurred on both the western and eastern slopes of Cima Falkner in the Brenta Group,' read a statement by authorities in the region of Trentino-Alto Adige. 'As a result, all climbing routes and hiking trails directly affected by the area have been immediately closed. 'All hikers in the area have been evacuated. We urge everyone to pay maximum attention and strictly follow the ordinances to ensure their own safety.' Following reports of rockfalls, a technical inspection was conducted on Tuesday by the geological service with the support of a helicopter unit, which confirmed that 'the entire summit is affected by an ongoing geomorphological process, likely linked to permafrost degradation'. Rockfalls have always occurred in the Dolomites, but experts this year warned of a striking rise in the number of collapses, driven by extreme heat and weather events intensified by the climate crisis. 'Never before have we seen such an incredible increase in rockfalls,' Piero Carlesi, president of the scientific committee of the Italian Alpine Club (CAI), told la Repubblica. 'Landslides are on the rise, and the main cause is the climate crisis. There's no doubt about it.' He added: 'Mountains, by definition, are destined to collapse – they won't remain as we know them for ever. What's different now is that we're seeing a clear acceleration of these processes, driven by heat and extreme weather events intensified by the climate crisis.' Cold temperatures, causing water seeping into rock fractures to freeze, acted as a kind of glue, holding the rocks together. But now, Carlesi said, with rising temperatures, that glue was disappearing and fractured rock was increasingly breaking off and tumbling down gullies. 'It's happening more and more often,' he said. Last year, Italian scientists who took part in a campaign launched by the environmentalist group Legambiente said the Marmolada glacier – the largest and most symbolic in the Dolomites – could melt completely by 2040. Their report said Marmolada was losing between 7cm and 10cm of depth a day and that over the past five years, 70 hectares (173 acres) of its surface had disappeared. Since the beginning of scientific measurements in 1888, the Marmolada glacier has withdrawn by 1,200 metres in an 'irreversible coma'. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion In 2022, a collapse on the Marmolada mountain sent an avalanche of ice, snow and rock downslope, killed 11 people. Erosion and rockfalls are on the rise not only in the Dolomites but across the entire Alpine range, according to mountaineers and experts. In late June 2025, Mont Blanc experienced a record-breaking heatwave with temperatures remaining above zero for an extended period at high altitudes, including the summit. Bernard Vion, a 66-year-old mountain guide, has been walking and climbing in the French Alps around Pralognan-la-Vanoise since he was a child and accompanies visitors on climbs. He said rockfalls and other dangers caused by climate change had complicated work for him and his colleagues. 'We have never seen rock falls of such intensity and regularity before. The permafrost, which is like a kind of cement holding the rocks together, is melting, meaning they have no cohesion and they collapse,' he said. Vion opened his phone to show a message from another guide with pictures of a large rockfall near a mountain refuge at about 2,800 metres above Pralognan-la-Vanoise on Monday. 'He was really shocked. He said he never expected it to happen there,' Vion said. 'For several years now we have had to develop the ability to observe these phenomenon and spot the warning signs. In some cases we've had to totally modify our itineraries to reduce the risk to our clients. Even for us guides this is difficult and I worry about amateur climbers who don't have the same mountain culture.' He said 'of course' this was due to climate breakdown. 'You'd have to be blind not to see it. Anyone who doubts this should come to the mountains.'
