After a year marked by serious environmental emergencies, including extreme meteorological events, floods and devastating summer fires which over the course of the summer destroyed around 1,000 hectares of vegetation on the Pollino and hit the Upper Tyrrhenian Sea of Cosenza last 15 September, the Calabria Region and Arpacal are taking action by launching the new CalabriAmbiente application.
Available free of charge on the Google Play Store and App Store, the tool is part of the PR Calabria FESR ESF+ 2021-2027 and aims to transform every citizen into a direct observer of the territory. Through the app or the dedicated difendiambiente.it portal, anyone can send geolocalized reports complete with multimedia files, photos and textual descriptions.
The primary objective of this tool is to directly involve citizens, transforming each person into an attentive observer capable of reporting critical issues, abuses or environmental dangers in real time. Each consignment is recorded through a specific identification tag, a fundamental code that allows the citizen to monitor the entire procedure of the case step by step, following the management of the report up to the final response from the competent regional offices, in an active and operational system 365 days a year.
From data consultation to synergy with the regional Control Room
The digital platform is not only configured as a simple collection channel for individual complaints, but represents a truly transparent and certified information ecosystem offering an interactive map constantly updated in real time which integrates Arpacal data, the hydraulic surveillance of Calabria Verde and the monitoring of forest fires.
This wealth of information communicates directly with the Control Room regional, the operational structure active from 2022 thanks to the operation Zero Tolerancewhich coordinates the use of drones and patrols to prevent and combat environmental crimes to protect the woods, seas and waterways of the entire region.
The digital innovations will also be officially presented on the occasion of the upcoming RemTech sector fairs in Ferrara and Ecomondo in Rimini. Despite the great potential offered by technology, the real game will however be played on the response capacity of the institutions: if digitalisation today manages to show the wounds of the territory in a capillary and immediate way, the real discriminating factor for the future will be the speed and effectiveness of concrete interventions, transforming every single report into an effective work of structural prevention before the next climate emergency occurs or hydrogeological.
