Civil Protection Department

Civil Protection simulation exercise

• Training activity for the national protection service components and operating units that, given a simulated scenario, check their procedures for alert, activation and intervention as part of the system for coordinating and managing the emergency.
  These exercises may be held on an international, national, regional or local level and may actively involve the population.

Echo - General Direction of Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection of the European Commission

• Struttura che è responsabile dell’aiuto umanitario e delle operazioni di assistenza dell'Unione europea. Il suo compito principale è fornire assistenza alle vittime di catastrofi, contribuire a salvare e proteggere vite umane, ridurre le sofferenze e tutelare l'integrità e la dignità delle persone coinvolte. L'intervento di emergenza può comprendere la fornitura di tende, coperte e altri generi di prima necessità, quali cibo, medicinali, attrezzature mediche, sistemi di depurazione dell'acqua e combustibili. Finanzia inoltre squadre mediche, esperti in sminamento e fornisce sostegno nel campo dei trasporti e della logistica.

Ecosystem

• The whole made up of animal and plant organisms that interact with each other and with their surrounding environment: each element relates to the others.

Local (or site) effects

• Effects due to the behaviour of the ground in the case of seismic events because of the presence of particular lito-stratigrafic and morphological conditions that determine local amplifications and ground instability phenomena (slope instability, liquefaction, active e capable faults, differential compaction, etc.).

Effusive eruption

• Eruption during which magma is emitted in the form of lava flows.

Electrosmog

• This refers to electromagnetic pollution caused by electromagnetic radiations, radio broadcasters, electric wiring carrying current, networks for mobile phones and mobile phones themselves.

Emission

• Discharge from any solid, liquid or gas substance introduced into the ecosystem by any installation that may cause atmospheric pollution.

   

Epicentre

• Point on the earth’s surface where the shaking caused by the passage of the seismic waves is strongest. The epicentre is vertical to the hypocentre.

Explosive eruption

• Violent emission of fragmented magma driven by the gas it contains and/or as an effect of vaporisation of water from outside coming into contact with the magma.

Plinian eruption

• Pliny the Younger described the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, is an eruption characterized by explosions that produce eruptive columns that rise to tens of kilometers.
  From the top of the column, less dense and pushed by winds aloft, falling particles that settle on no less than 500 km². The densest part of the column could collapse and produce pyroclastic flows.

Strombolian eruption

• From Stromboli volcano, an eruption is characterized by bursts of low energy that are followed at regular intervals, from seconds to hours. The pieces of magma thrown up to several hundreds of meters high, fall to the ground and form a cinder cone.

Subplinian eruption (VEI = 4)

• Explosive eruption with phenomena similar to the ones of the plinian eruption, but with lower energy and consequent reduced distribution of eruptive mass.

Volcanic eruption

• Outpouring of magma through an eruptive mouth of a volcano. The eruption may be effusive, if the magma comes out in liquid form (called “lava”), or explosive, if the magma is fragmented into pieces of varying size (pyroclasts). Eruptions are classified according to their flow and the volume of magma emitted and the level of the blast.

Exposure

• It is the unit number (or “value”) of each of the elements at risk in a given area, like human lives or inhabited areas.

Eutrophication

• Excessive water plant growth that occurs where there are large amounts of nutritious substances such as nitrogen, phosphorus or sulphur, deriving from natural or man-made sources - fertlizers, detergents, civil or industrial waste. Microscopic algae flourish and, since they cannot be completely digested by the ecosystem, cause a major baceria activity and lack of oxygen needed for fish to survive. Eutrophication is among causes of environmental decay.

Event

• Natural or manmade phenomenon capable of causing damage to the population, businesses, buildings and infrastructures, as well as the area. Law no. 225 of 1992, art. 2 identifies three types of civil protection event:
  
  a) natural or man-related events that may be tackled with the ordinary intervention of a single organisation or authority;
  b) natural or man-related events that, due to their nature and extent, require the coordinated, ordinary intervention of different organisations and authorities;
  c) natural disasters, catastrophes or other events that, due to their intensity and extent, must be tackled using special means and powers.