PanGeo case history from Rome, Italy
PanGeo is a 3-year collaborative project that provides information describing the stability of the ground on which we live, work and play. Ground instability can be dangerous and costly, yet information on these phenomena has, to date, been difficult to obtain. PanGeo provides free access to ground instability geohazard information for many of Europe’s largest cities. Users of the PanGeo service include local authorities, civil protection agencies, geological surveys, insurers and businesses providing environmental and land reporting services and of course the general public.
The PanGeo project is drawing to a close at the end of January 2014, but feedback recently received from Rome illustrates the substantial benefits that can accrue when the Local Authority (LA) and the Geological Survey (GS) combine to form a team that is greater than the sum of its parts.
The PanGeo project is drawing to a close at the end of January 2014, but feedback recently received from Rome illustrates the substantial benefits that can accrue when the Local Authority (LA) and the Geological Survey (GS) combine to form a team that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Representatives of Rome city authority and the Italian Geological Survey (Il Servizio Geologico dell’ISPRA) combined their expertise to create a PanGeo geohazard product integrating their respective expertise and uniting the different databases to produce a geological mapping hazard product for Rome that could leverage all the available aspects of knowledge.
Results from the Rome experience seem to confirm that an effective mutualisation of local resources, special expertise and databases can achieve results not easily producible by the individual entities and have an impact well beyond the initial goal for the benefit of a larger community of users.