Pictures of the new tide gauge station installed in Santa Maria di Leuca (LE) (source: ISPRA)A new tide gauge has been installed by the Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale in April in the port of Santa Maria di Leuca (LE), in Apulia. ISPRA is part of SiAM, the national tsunami warning system coordinated by the Department or Italian Civil Protection and based on the 24-hour monitoring provided by INGV's Centro Allerta Tsunami (CAT).
The new-concept station in Santa Maria di Leuca will enable high-resolution monitoring of sea level variations, using broadband technology, and will also provide detection and archiving services for marine climatic parameters. The data will be transmitted in real time to the CAT.
In recent years, technology development has made it possible to significantly reduce the time needed to send the first tsunami warning message, based on the rapid calculation of earthquake parameters, to 5-10 minutes for earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 5.5 occurring in the Mediterranean. The researchers of the Tsunami Alert Centre, through the stations of ISPRA's National Mareographic Network and the other tide gauge networks operating in the Mediterranean, acquire indispensable data to monitor sea level variations and, in the event of a potentially tsunamigenic event, to confirm to the National Civil Protection the presence of a tsunami in progress or to communicate the cancellation of the alert.
The tide gauge stations of the SiAM network are located in areas characterised by a considerable tsunami hazard, some of which are located close to tsunamigenic sources in the Mediterranean.
With these advanced infrastructures, Italy strengthens its participation in the tsunami mitigation programme of the ICG/NEAMTWS (Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Tsunami Early Warning and Mitigation System in the North-Eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean and connected seas), which operates under UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC).
Further technical information on the Mareographic Network on the ISPRA website.