Civil Protection Department

Environmental risk is connected to the production, management and distribution of goods, services or industrial products from the primary or secondary sector (agriculture and industry) as well as the tertiary sector (or services), which may represent the cause of accidents with short-term effects on public health.

Even if the change to physical-chemical parameters of the environment was caused by exceptional natural events, such as secondary volcanic phenomena, the environmental risk must be considered a mainly manmade risk.
While current legislation provides for a regime of ordinary management of environmental problems, it does not exclude recourse to emergency and special procedures should the health of the population resident in an area subject to the abovementioned risk come under threat.

In actual fact, many areas on national territory have experienced or are experiencing situations such as to require urgent prescriptive operations for the protection of public safety. In this sphere, the Department of Civil Protection is increasingly called upon to intervene, and is engaged in complex problems that range from waste to water pollution emergencies, electro smog, problems associated with asbestos use, even if such issues do not necessarily involve recourse to a state of emergency and the issue of civil protection orders.