Italian initiative for the National Collaboration Programme (NCP) of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S)

The initiative

As part of the collaboration and cooperation activities planned between ECMWF-European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, responsible for the management of C3S on behalf of the European Commission (Entrusted Entity), and Member States, Italy has successfully participated in the first competitive Call for Actions of the NCP promoted by the European Union to support the user uptake of C3S products in institutional processes and workflows.

At the moment, only eight nations, including Italy, have obtained funding in the first Call for Actions. This represents an important recognition for the country, which demonstrates the validity of the partnership and the project proposal and underlines the relevance of the actions foreseen in the Italian initiative.

The general objective of the C3S NCP is to promote the development of hydro-climatic and environmental services based on earth observation, from the national to the local scale, to increase the operational use of C3S products, as well as to promote specific training and information activities for different types of users and stakeholders, both from institutional communities and from various private sectors.

With the signing in mid-October 2024 of the agreement between ECMWF and ISPRA, leader of a partnership of national bodies and regional agencies for environmental protection, the aim is to strengthen the use of the resources made available by C3S in tools for assessing and forecasting the current and future impacts of climate change on the environment and natural resources, which have a strong impact on the country given its central position in the Mediterranean, one of the hot-spots of the climate crisis.

The approach

The cooperation between the partnership and ECMWF for the Italian initiative of the C3S NCP has a duration of 2 years and is born within the coordination actions of the Copernicus National Users Forum.

The project partnership is coordinated by ISPRA and includes the Italian Air Force, the ItaliaMeteo Agency, ENEA, the CNR with the Institute of BioEconomics and the Institute of Geosciences and Georesources, the Italian Consortium of the Copernicus Academy and 4 Regional Environmental Protection Agencies of SNPA, namely ARPA Campania, ARPA Lombardia, ARPA Piemonte and ARPA Valle d’Aosta. Already in the response phase to the C3S call, the initiative has seen the expression of interest from the Po River Basin District Authority, the River District Basin Authority of Eastern Alps, the River Basin District Authority of Northern Apennines, River Basin District Authority of Southern Apennines and ISMEA. Furthermore, the CMCC will support the initiative as an external advisor.

Through the Copernicus National Users Forum, the National Committee on Operational Climatology Services, the National Committee for Operational Hydrology Services and the SNPA Thematic Network on Hydro-Meteo-Climate will be actively involved, creating an essential bridge among C3S, the products developed in the initiative and the technicians of the sector, end users from the national to the local scale. In defining the user requirements, other specific user communities will also be involved, both from the institutional world (e.g., the River Basin District Authorities, the hydro-meteorological offices of the Regions and the two autonomous Provinces) and from the private sector (e.g., water resource and hydro-electric managers, food and agriculture sectors). A first initiative to involve institutional users took place on February 17, 2025.

Main Actions at the National or Regional Level

Estimate the future availability of water resources through the national hydrological water balance model BIGBANG and develop future projections of heat waves based on greenhouse gas emission scenarios, assess the risks of forest fires and predict the possible frequency of drought events and temperature and precipitation anomalies based on based on seasonal forecasts are some of the objectives of the initiative.

Thanks to this collaboration, the initiative intends to use the best data and models currently available at European level to enhance the capacity for hydro-climatic assessment and estimation of natural resources, as well to support the environmental protection, through integration into the institutional monitoring and forecasting tools already operational in Italy at national, regional and local scales.

The objectives of the initiative will also be to evaluate the effectiveness of the cloud computing space made available to Member States by the European Weather Cloud managed by ECMWF and EUMETSAT, to organize training activities for the use of C3S products and those generated by the initiative, as well as to implement specific promotion, dissemination and communication activities