PROTERINA-3 Évolution is a project that began in January 2017 and ended in February 2020, realized in the framework of the Interreg Italy-France Maritime 2014-2020 Programme, and of which CIMA Research Foundation has been the leader. The general objective was to strengthen the capacity of the territory to respond to flood risk by building awareness of institutions and communities. The project was centred on three Italian regions (Liguria, Sardinia and Tuscany) and two French regions (Corsica and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur).
The project activities were articulated on three macro-areas that led to the definition of three Joint Action Plans (PAC), through which the roadmap of the flood risk reduction strategies of the Maritime Cooperation territory will be drawn in the future. The first macro-area is prevention, to improve the effectiveness of prevention measures for flood risk management and mitigation through the involvement of communities. The second macro-area is forecasting and monitoring, to strengthen monitoring networks and integrate the data acquired within early warning models, improving the ability to predict and observe flood phenomena. Finally, the last macro-area was communication and awareness of the population, to improve risk perception and the ability of institutions to transfer information in a clear, effective and credible way.
In terms of structural results, PROTERINA-3 Évolution allowed for the installation of new rainfall and flood monitoring systems, the improvement of weather modelling and flood forecasting, the creation and/or development of new communication systems with the population. Flood barriers and mobile bulkheads were then installed in five Ligurian schools and in Sardinian gyms, schools and town halls. It was also possible to create a rain garden to increase the water retention capacity of the soil at the Noli headquarters of the Istituto Comprensivo di Campomorone, in Liguria: it is an experimental “green” infrastructure, a garden on draining soil populated by plants suitable for collecting water, so as to slow down surface water runoff and mitigate flood risk.
As part of PROTERINA-3 Évolution, the CIMA Research Foundation also activated, in collaboration with the Liguria Region, ARPAL, ANCI Liguria and the Metropolitan City of Genoa, three participatory civil protection planning paths in the Ligurian municipalities of Albenga, Ameglia and Arcola and the Upper Polcevera Valley. In this way it has been possible to create shared plans with the community and between different but territorially contiguous administrative realities.
The added value of the three years of PROTERINA-3 Évolution activity, however, does not only lie in the results achieved in terms of technological innovations and structural measures for flood risk mitigation. The work carried out during the participatory pathways made it possible to work and reflect on risk prevention, protection, planning, monitoring and forecasting with all the stakeholders involved in the management, not least the citizens. Particular attention, in this field, was given to schools as a physical and cultural place dedicated to education: in the institutions involved, the participation of teachers, students and parents led to the revision or planning of emergency plans.
Through PROTERINA-3Évolution, Liguria has become a reference region at national level in the experimentation of participatory civil protection plans against flood risk. Based on the work carried out during the project, it seems clear that these procedures increase confidence in institutions and create a reservoir of social capital and resilience. The synergy established between the administrations and the educational institution was also important, not only for the dissemination of the civil protection culture, but also as a potential hub for the definition of strategies and response capacities of each territory under consideration, in particular with regard to flood risk.