DIGITAL STORAGE AND THE DATA COLLECTION FOR THE SEISMIC PREVENTION: A COMPARISON FROM THE ITALIAN RECENT EXPERIENCES

Abstract. Concerning the care of our Built Heritage, one of the most important problem that was observed after an earthquake is the speed in the reaction, aiming to minimize the damages provoked by the shakes. As a matter of fact, the necessary time for the reaction of the rescue teams should be not too long, in order to avoid further damages provoked by the future shakes. Thus, the best way to minimize this type of damage is to design appropriate shoring systems that replace the lack of stiffness provoked by earthquake as soon as possible. In this sense, it’s necessary to know many information of a damaged monument, such as: the geometry, the materials and the structural characteristics, the presence of previous alterations and/or restorations, etc. Unfortunately, the accessibility to this kind of information is not always available after an earthquake, due to the possible damages provoked to the buildings, where the public archives and the documentation are normally stored (L’Aquila 2009, Amatrice 2016).

The awareness of this problem started immediately after the serious earthquake that hit the city of L’Aquila in 2009. Then, it became more urgent after 2016, when the extended and continued earthquake in the Centre of Italy provoked increasing damages to buildings and monuments. In particular, an important role in the churches’ collapses that had occurred during this last earthquake was due to the difficulty in finding the necessary information to design proper shoring systems.

Nowadays, starting from the experience of L’Aquila, teams composed by functionaries of the Ministry of Culture, engineers from different universities and special members of the Fire Brigade have developed and improved various models for the management of the emergency phases. Using the modern geomatics tools (i.e. Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), Terrestrial Laser Scanners (TLS), Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS)), it’s possible to achieve the digital acquisition of many building’s data and characteristics (i.e. through the 3D Object recognition and reconstruction, the point cloud analysis, etc.).

This article examines some of the most interesting solutions that were adopted after the recent Italian earthquakes (L’Aquila 2009, Emilia-Lombardia 2012, Centre of Italy 2016) by some of the major public Entities (Superintendences, Italian Fire Brigade). Moreover, it evaluates the possibility to enhance both the competences and the tools that have been until now developed, with the purpose to use them for an effective Built Heritage prevention, without having to wait a new emergency phase to adopt them.