NEWFRAME brings together the expertise of two research units, UNIPV and IUSS, experienced respectively in the mathematical modeling of urban drainage networks and in risk assessment associated with extreme events.

Università degli Studi di Pavia (UNIPV) is in charge of the coordination of the overall project and of the management of the tasks and activities. Prof. Enrico Creaco is the scientific leader of UNIPV and also the Project Investigator of the project. UNIPV is in charge of the coordination and implementation of the urban drainage system and of the flash flood assessment. The University of Pavia is one of the oldest universities in Europe. An edict issued by King Lotharius quotes a higher education institution in Pavia as already established in 825. Pavia is a Research University, offering a wide variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary teaching organized in 18 Departments and it has study programmes at all levels: Bachelor’s degrees, single-cycle Masters degrees, research degrees, speciality schools and level I  and II Masters degrees. Research is carried out in departments, institutes, clinics, centres, and laboratories in close association with public and private institutions, enterprises and companies.

Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS di Pavia (IUSS) is in charge of the coordination and implementation of the NEWFRAME Risk Model Development based on the data collected, the urban flash flood maps and the conceptual network model. IUSS will work closely with UNIPV on urban flash flood maps and with the main stakeholders for the collection of data and involvement of different stakeholders. IUSS is an Italian Public
Institution devoted to research and higher education. IUSS is specialized in the area of Understanding and Managing the Extremes (UME) and has a consolidated experience in flood and extreme weather risk assessment, working in close collaboration with the University of Pavia and Eucentre Foundation. IUSS offers a variety of educational and training paths based on a strong interdisciplinary approach. The academic activities of IUSS are structured at both under and postgraduate levels; however, the main focus is on the latter. From an undergraduate perspective, IUSS provides complementary multidisciplinary training to the brightest students, admitted after a highly selective procedure. This multidisciplinary training covers the fields of Science and Technology, Biomedical Science, Humanities and Social Science. The UME Research Area focuses its activities on three main topics: (i) disaster risk assessment, focusing mainly on natural hazards; (ii) extreme situation management; and (iii) engineering for risk mitigation.

Private, grantmaking foundations – and, among them, foundations with a banking origin – are a fundamental resource to support the social, cultural, political, and economic development of a country. To fulfill their role, these foundations have to be free to deal with the needs unattended by the public administration, the market or other non-profit organizations or to take a fresh approach to address the needs these entities have already tried to satisfy. A foundation cannot be called upon to act in place of government agencies by channeling towards them the foundation’s financial resources. The potential to innovate civil society represents a foundation’s strength and is the true contribution they can give to the country’s development.

It is precisely in this context that one should view the activities carried out by Fondazione Cariplo, one of the world’s main philanthropic organizations, which manages the assets gathered over 180 years by Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde to carry on its long-standing philanthropic tradition. Fondazione Cariplo aims at operating on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity, anticipating needs and fulfilling its special mission of being a resource that helps social and civil organizations to serve better their community. Since it was established in 1991, the Foundation has modernized itself to continue to pursue its philanthropic mission at best. Today, the Foundation is a modern-time organization with specific operational strategies, staffed with young, specialized personnel, equipped with the structures and the tools suitable to implement modern philanthropy initiatives, and to give ideas a future.

NEWFRAME began in the first half of 2018 and it has a duration of 30 months.

Two important floods occurred during the second half of XX century, one in 1976 and the second during November 1996. The last severe one was in November 2002, which was comparable to the one of 1976, and it was followed by a significant event in autumn 2014.

If you are interested in the project and our scientific methodology or you are looking for information about the case study, do not hesitate to contact us at info@newframe.it or follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn.

The research community concerned with Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), particularly in the fields of physical and environmental sciences, has generally agreed on a common approach for the calculation of risk (R) as a function of hazard (H), exposure (E), and vulnerability (V): R = f ( H, E, V ). Hazard defines the potentially damaging events and their probabilities of occurrence; exposure represents the population or assets located in hazard zones that are therefore subject to potential loss; vulnerability links the intensity of a hazard to potential losses of the exposed elements. This framework has been used by researchers and practitioners in the field of seismic risk assessment for some time, and has more recently also become standard practice for other types of hazards, such as floods

A return period is an estimate of the likelihood of an event, such as an earthquake, flood, landslide, or a river discharge flow to occur. It is a statistical measurement typically based on historic data denoting the average recurrence interval over an extended period of time, and it is usually used for risk analysis (e.g. to decide whether a project should be allowed to go forward in a zone of a certain risk, or to design structures to withstand an event with a certain return period).

Fluvial, or riverine flooding, occurs when excessive rainfall over an extended period of time causes a river to exceed its capacity. It can also be caused by heavy snow melt and ice jams. There are two main types of riverine flooding: 1) overbank flooding occurs when water rises overflow over the edges of a river or stream; 2) Flash flooding is characterized by an intense, high velocity torrent of water that occurs in an existing river channel with little to notice. A pluvial, or surface water flood, is caused when heavy rainfall creates a flood event independent of an overflowing water body. One of the most common misconceptions
about flood risk is that one must be located near a body of water to be at risk. Pluvial flooding debunks that myth, as it can happen in any urban area — even higher elevation areas that lie above coastal and river floodplains. A possible common type of pluvial flooding is an intense rain that saturates an urban drainage system. The system becomes overwhelmed and water flows out into streets and nearby structures.

Traditional risk assessments have been primarily dealing with direct tangible damage in a very detailed fashion, however there is a whole set of neglected losses that should be considered in view of providing a comprehensive quantification of risk. In fact, the total costs matrix is composed by four quadrants: direct tangible and intangible, and indirect tangible and intangible.

Graph Theory is the branch of mathematics that studies the properties of networks. Networks can comprise physical elements in the Euclidean space (e.g. electric power grids, the Internet, highways, neural networks) or entities defined in an intangible space (e.g. collaborations between individuals).
Since its inception in the eighth century, Graph Theory has provided answers to questions in different sectors, such as pipe networks, roads, and the spread of epidemics. During the last decade, there has been an increase in interest in the study of complex networks (e.g. irregular structures, dynamically evolving in time), paying renewed attention to the dynamic properties of networks.