Fernando Nardi Blog

Assistant Professor / Civil hydraulic engineer with a PhD in Hydrology Interests: Information Communication & technology (ICT), Geographic Information System (GIS) for water resources, environment, energy, climate, urban planning, natural disasters and risk management http://www.fernandonardi.net/ @fnardi fernando.nardi(at)unistrapg.it

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GIT Annual Event - Montefalco (Perugia) Italy 16-18 june 2014

The 2014 annual meeting of the Geology and Information Technology (GIT), a section of the Italian Geology Society, was held in Montefalco close to Perugia in central Italy in the unique location of the San Francesco Museum Complex.

For more info on the GIT please also refer to my previous post here related to the 2013 GIT meeting in North Italy.

More info and the detailed program and description of the event are available at the official GIT conference site http://www.gitonline.eu/GITTMP/GIT2014/GIT2014.html

During the conference it was announced the change of the group title that from now on will be named Geosciences and Information Technologies (same acronym GIT) for following the recent trend of multidisciplinary contributions and researchers participating to the conference that are not only strictly related to geology but to geosciences in general. 

Antonio Annis first authored our contribution An ArcGIS tool to estimate the design hydrograph using the VAPI and WFIUH methods in the District of the Central Apennine. The pdf of the presentation is available both at the conference site here or it can be also downloaded directly here.

Picture of Antonio Annis during the presentation in the conference hall. More pictures are available at the Facebook page here.

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Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM) Annual Conference, Seattle 1-6 june 2014

I participated to the 2014 Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM) Annual Conference that was held in Seattle (Washington State, USA) from june 1st to the 6th 2014 at the Washington State Convention Center (see picture here below).

For more info on what the ASFPM is and the floodplain managers association goals and certification specifications please read my post here related to my previous participation to the San Antonio (Texas) ASFPM conference.

The full program of the 2014 ASFPM conference is available in pdf format here.

I participated to the F7 Session "Model Comparison" with an oral presentation titled Comparing flood mapping performances of 1D/2D hydraulic models using DEMs for representing the floodplain and channel morphology. The abstract of the presentation is here while the pdf of the powerpoint presentation may be download at the official conference website or directly here.

The applied research work presented at ASFPM is part of an ongoing collaboration with prof. Alfred Kalyanapu and his team at Tennessee Tech University, also supported by Dr. Mauro Nalesso from the IDRAN Engineering & Technology consulting company. A scientific journal paper is in press based on the first outcomes of this collaboration: 

Bhuyian, Md. N. M., Kalyanapu, A. J., and Nardi, F. "An Approach for Digital Elevation Models (DEM) Correction by Improving Channel Conveyance" Journal of Hydrologic Engineering (in press).

A picture taken during my presentation is inserted here below, while more pictures can be found on my Facebook page here.

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Geospatial World Forum and UNECE HLM Smart Cities Workshop - Geneva May 5-9 2014

The 2014 Geospatial World Forum (GWF) is one the most important events in the geospatial and GIS business. This edition was organized in Geneva at the International Conference Center from may 5th to the 9th 2014.

I participated to the Geodisasters Session with an oral presentation titled Natural hazard and territorial planning: Using digital topographic data to capture the flood footprint. The abstract and pdf of the presentation are available at the conference website at the following link. You may also directly download the pdf of the presentation here.

I also joined the Forum on Land Information Systems (LIS) for Smart Cities organized by the United Nations Economic Commissions for Europe (UNECE) Land and House Management Unit characterized by a 2-days discussion on how the LIS may support national and local authorities to implement the smart city concept. The program of the event is available at http://geospatialworldforum.org/2014/LIS.asp

The entire program and proceedings of the conference are at the official GWF website at http://geospatialworldforum.org/proceedings.htm

More pictures from the event are available at my Facebook page here.

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GIS for United Nations Conference - Geneva 7 – 9 April, 2014

The 2014 GIS for the United Nations and the International Community Conference was held in Geneva (Switzerland) from April 7th to the 9th 2014.

The yearly conference organized by the ITU (International Telecommunication Union), The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT) and ESRI Inc was participated by distinguished invited speakers including the keynotes from Fabio Leite and Yvon Henry from ITU and Jack Dangermond, CEO of ESRI, and by invited presentations by Barbara Ryan from the Group on Earth Observation GEO, Amid Jafari from the World Health Organization (WHO), Einar Bjorgo from UNITAR/UNOSAT and John McHarris from the World Food Program (WFP).

The conference program is available at http://www.gisfortheun.com/agenda/index.html

My presentation - titled A GIS approach for mapping world floodplains using DEMs - was inserted in the User Knowledge Exchanges session. The PDF of the presentation is available here

Pictures from the event are on my Facebook page here.

Picture with Jack Dangermond, CEO of ESRI Inc

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Unesco Chair Inaugural Meeting - Perugia March 11th, 2014

The UNESCO Chair on “Water Resources Management and Culture”, established in Perugia in 2013 following the Agreement between Unesco, the University for Foreigners of Perugia and the Honors Center of Italian Universities (H2CU), is the only Chair in the Water sector in Italy. 

The  Chair  is part of the UNESCO University Twinning and Networking (UNITWIN) Programme whose objective is to foster networks and twinning among Universities. The UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs program, established in 1992, is a program established to advance research and training for higher education with specific regard to inter-university cooperation knowledge transfer across border development projects.

More info and objectives of the Chair are available at the official website http://www.unescowaterchair.org/chair/mission/

The inaugural meeting of the Unesco Chair took place in Perugia on march 11th 2014 at the presence of the most important institution representative at the local, national and international level. The program of the event is available at http://www.unescowaterchair.org/unesco-and-water/sm-s3/.

I gave a presentation titled "GIS AND TERRAIN ANALYSIS FOR UNDERSTANDING WATER PROCESSES AND FEATURES" can be downloaded here or check it on slideshare.

My pictures from the event are here, while the home page of the Chair and the Facebook page with further pictures and info are respectively http://www.unescowaterchair.org/ and https://www.facebook.com/perugiaunescowaterchair

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Intellectual Property Workshop at Minister of Foreign Affairs - Rome January 27th 2014

On january 27th 2014 I participated to the workshop "Intellectual Property: strategic encouragement for economic development in the global market" organized by the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the International Conference Hall in the prestigious Farnesina Palace in Rome.

This has been the first time in which I officially represented my university, Università per Stranieri di Perugia, following the Rector's mandate for representing the institution for "Technology transfer and spin-off at the national and international level".

The minister Emma Bonino opened the event. The press release of her intervention with the entire speech is here, while more pictures from the event are here.

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Google Earth Engine Workshop @AGU + Googleplex visit - December 9th 2013

I participated to the Google Earth Engine workshop that was organized in  the Google San Francisco downtown office on december 9th 2013.

I joined the Google Earth Engine beta testing team discovering the very interesting capabilities of the workspace/programming environment (namely the Playground) that give access to raster based analyses using DEMs and several remote sensing data that are available on the google servers for on-the-fly geospatial analyses. I hope to have time soon to use this tool effectively for research applications.

For more info visit the official page at https://earthengine.google.org/

I had the chance to meet some Googlers and enter the main office in Mountain View to visit the Googleplex. Some pictures are available at my Facebook page following this link.

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American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting - San Francisco (USA) 9-13 december 2013

Second year in a row for me at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco. After my participation in 2012 (see my post here) I joined again the biggest event in the field of geo and earth science.

I participated to the Session H044. Hydrological change and water systems: feedbacks, prediction, and experimental management with an oral presentation titled Large scale floodplain mapping using a hydrogeomorphic method. Download the abstract here and the pdf of the powerpoint presentation here.

I also co-authored a poster in the Session H53D Floods: Satellite Observation, Modeling and Socioeconomic Response with the contribution titled The development of a hydrologic-hydraulic representation of an urbanscape: the case study of Nashville, Tennessee

Here below a picture from the poster session with Frank Sedlar, student from University of Michigan, first author of the poster.

Here below a photo from the AGU Exposition. More pictures at my Facebook page here.

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SAIE Building Innovation Exhibition, Bologna October 16-19, 2013

The SAIE International Exhibition is one the main fair at the national level for the building and construction business.

The Honors Center of Italian Universities participated with a booth for promoting the H2CU activities for academic and scientific exchange in the civil environmental and energy engineering sector.

More info at the official SAIE website at http://www.saie.bolognafiere.it/ while pictures taken during the event are uploaded on my Facebook page here.

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World Lake Conference - Preliminary meetings - Rome/Perugia, September 2013

Perugia was selected of the next venue of the 15th World Lake Conference by the International Lake Environment Committee (ILEC).

In september 2013 some preliminary important events have been organized by the Organizing and Scientific Committee for paving the way to the main event that will take place from the 1st to the 5th of september 2014.

The two events are:

Workshop on UNESCO and WATER held in Rome, on September 16th 2013 in Piazza Firenze, 27 at the UNESCO Italian Commission building in Palazzo Firenze, Sala del Primaticcio. The event brochure is here.

Workshop on Science, Cultural and Human Wellbeing in Lake Areas: Trasimeno Lake case study held at Castiglione del Lago on September 18th, 2013

More info at the conference website at http://www.wlc15perugia.com and more specifically at http://www.wlc15perugia.com/index.php/pre-conference-meetings/second-ilec-usma-meeting while the pictures from the events from my Facebook page are here.

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Geology and Information Technology (GIT) Annual event - Valchiavenna, 17-19 june 2013

The 2013 Geology and Information Technology (GIT) conference was held in Valchiavenna (Sondrio, Italy) from june 17th to the 19th. The conference website is here.

The GIT conference provides an unique opportunity for discussing and sharing ideas and issues in the applied geology and hydrology sector with specific regard to flood risk management and land planning since it is characterized by the integrated presence of experts, academics and technical personnel from public and private agencies in a very informal, yet professional setting. The full program of the event (in italian) is here.

I participated to the conference with two posters (in italian) and one oral contribution (in English) presenting actual activities pertaining to the development and application of advanced GIS and 2D hydraulic modelling for the characterization of the flood hazard and risk of the Tiber river basin in the urban area of the city of Rome (Tiber River Water Authority project) and in the middle portion of the basin (Regione Lazio Difesa Suolo project) and in particular:

GIS and 2D Hydraulic Modelling for Flood Hazard Map Updating for Rome Urban Area: the Aniene case study (DOWNLOAD PRESENTATION)

Modellazione idraulica 2D in ambiente GIS per la verifica dell’assetto idraulico della media valle del fiume Tevere da Orte a Castel Giubileo (DOWNLOAD POSTER)

Integrazione di un sistema di modellazione idrogeomorfologica ed idraulica 2D in ambiente GIS per l’aggiornamento del Piano di Assetto Idrogeologico: il caso di studio del reticolo principale del fiume Tevere nell’area urbana di Roma Capitale (DOWNLOAD POSTER)

Pictures from the event in the beautiful setting of Valchiavenna the italian Alps are uploaded in the Facebook page here.

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2nd Open Day "Innovation for flood risk management": Naples/Caserta, Italy - October 11th, 2013

The 2nd Open Day was held in Caserta on October 11th 2013. This second edition of the Water Open day, organized by the Apotema Association in collaboration with University for Foreigners of Perugia, Tuscia university of Viterbo and University of Naples Federico II, has been characterized by a series of events:

Naples, May 15th and 29th: Open course for introducing the software FLO-2D BASIC sponsored by FLO-2D Europe to the hydraulic engineering students from Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II Prof. Francesco De Paola's course; 

Perugia, july 22nd 2013: Field visit on the Tiber river for presenting advanced GPS and Laser Scanner techniques for state of the art topopgraphic surveying;

Perugia, july 23-26 july 2013. Professional FLO-2D PRO short course at University for Foreigners of Perugia

Caserta, october 11th 2013. Final event organized at Provincia di Caserta with local and regional political and technical authorities (universities, river basin authorities, national and regional engineers associations, etc) involved in the morning session, while the afternoon was dedicated to the exchange of flood risk management experts from public and private entities with students and young professionals. The full program can be downloaded here, while my presentation for introducing the goal and specifications of the afternoon session is here.

Pictures from the final event are uploaded at the Facebook page here.

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FLO-2D Hydraulic Modelling Course - University of Naples May 2013

An open course for introducing the use of the bidimensional hydraulic model FLO-2D has been organized for undergrad students of the University of Naples Federico II.

This invited seminar, in collaboration with prof. Francesco De Paola and Dr. Mauro Nalesso from FLO-2D Europe , took place in May 15th and 29th 2013, is part of the 2013 Water Open Day event. For more info see the Open day official website here and read the specific blog post here.

More than 50 students participated to the course. For more pics see the Facebook album here.

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Seminar at UNESCO-IHE: Delft, The Netherlands - May 8th 2013

On May 8th 2013 I gave a seminar at the UNESCO Institute for Water Education (IHE) in Delft in the Netherlands. The presentation River Basins GIS Terrain Hydrogeomorphic Analysis for Large Scale Flood Risk Management and Urban Planning can be downloaded here.

The lecture was kindly organized by Giuliano di Baldassarre that is now a faculty at Uppsala University in Sweden.

Pictures from the event in Delft are here.

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UNISCAPE Landscape and Imagination Conference - Paris 2-4 May 2014

UNISCAPE established in Florence in January 2008 as joint initiative of 23 European Universities, is the European Network of Universities for the implementation of the European Landscape Convention. It now includes 42 universities from Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Belgium, Slovakia and France. More info at http://www.uniscape.eu/

This is the second general UNISCAPE Conference organised in collaboration with the École Nationale d'Architecture de Paris - la Villette (ÉNSAPLV) in the centre of Paris. The material and more info of this event can be downloaded at the conference website here.

My contribution, titled, "An Automated Gis Partitioning Approach for a Large Scale River Basin Landscape" includes and oral presentation and a paper included in the conference proceedings that can be downloaded here (presentation) and here (paper). 

Few pictured from the conference are available at the Facebook page here.

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European Geophysical Union (EGU) Annual Conference - Vienna, April 2013

EGU, the European Geosciences Union, is the most important  geosciences and planetary sciences association. Established in September 2002 as a merger of the European Geophysical Society (EGS) and the European Union of Geosciences (EUG), EGU is structured as  non-profit international union of scientists counting on approx. 12,500 members from all over the world. The annual meeting is held in Vienna every year in april. 

I participated to the conference with the following three abstract that were presented within poster sessions:

Session HS6.4 Hydrology and remote sensing: current platforms and the future SWOT mission

On the investigation of the performances of a DEM-based hydrogeomorphic floodplain identification method in a large urbanized river basin: the Tiber river case study in Italy (Download ABSTRACT and POSTER)

Investigating the definition of flood maps using a 2D hydraulic routing model forced by a DEM-based fully continuous rainfall-runoff algorithm (Download ABSTRACT and POSTER)

Session NH1.6 Flood risk and uncertainty

DEM-based Approaches for the Identification of Flood Prone Areas (Download ABSTRACT)

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Italy-Florida Scientific collaboration: Miami event - February 13th, 2013

On february 13th 2013 in Miami it was held the inaugural meeting "Italy and Florida: strategy for joint academic collaboration" with the presence of the Italian Consul in Miami, the italian delegation with prof. Lucio Ubertini (Sapienza University of Rome and Honors Center of Italian Universities H2CU Director and prof. Salvatore Grimaldi (Tuscia University of Viterbo and H2CU Executive Secretary) and top representatives from major colleges in Miami and in particular from Florida International University (FIU), University of Miami (UM) and Miami Dade College (MDC).

Selected pictures of most significant moments of the event are published on my Facebook page here.