Multi-risk and climate change resilience: RETURN, an innovative project under NextGenEU funds
The RETURN partnership
In Italy, one important and innovative research projects under NextGenEU funds focuses on multi-hazard risk analysis and climate change resilience: RETURN (Multi-risk science for resilient communities under a changing climate) is an extended public-private partnership, which also includes the national Civil Protection Department as a member.
The project aims at strengthening the research chains on environmental, natural and anthropogenic risks at national level and promote their participation in European and global strategic value chains. By enhancing basic knowledge, targeting the application and exploitation of technology, RETURN contributes to strengthening key competences, technology and knowledge transfer, as well as Italian governance in disaster risk management, with the involvement of public administrations, stakeholders and private companies.
Goal and approach
The areas of interest include hazards such as flooding, coastal flooding, droughts, ground instabilities, earthquakes, volcanic phenomena and environmental degradation. These hazards are related to the urban and metropolitan settlements, critical infrastructures and to the communities’ resilience, considered in its social, economic, legal and cultural dimensions. Special attention is paid to the climate change and to the science underpinning climate services for risk mitigation and adaptation.
The project is funded with about 115 M€ and aims at:
- better UNDERSTANDING Environmental, Natural and Anthropic Risks, as well as their interrelation with the effect of climate change effects
- ENHANCING risk prevision and methodologies for prevention, adaptation and mitigation
- DEVELOPING new methodologies/technologies for monitoring
- FOSTERING a more efficient and sustainable use of data, products and services
To do this, RETURN benefits from innovative approaches and techniques, such as the use of testbeds, proofs of concept (PoCs), digital twins and advanced forecast models, applied to a multi-hazard risk environment in a climate change perspective, also supported by the Artificial Intelligence.
Scientific results
Among the results, it is worthwhile mentioning the development of a Digital Ecosystem, an infrastructure that serves as a unifying platform for the integration of operational tools and PoCs, enabling the simulation and analysis of climate and hydrological risk scenarios.
Central to the project is the design and implementation of a Virtual Test Bed, made up of two key components: RETURNLAND, a territorial-scale digital elevation model, and RETURNVILLE, a detailed digital urban model. They result in a comprehensive simulation environment enabling the co-production of multi-risk scenarios grounded in physical and social realities.
PoCs and impact-driven storylines were contextualized within several Italian case studies and focused on creating realistic and place-based narratives of risk evolution. For this purpose, the PoCs, initially modeled within the RETURNLAND and RETURNVILLE test beds (Figure), have been then adapted for integration within the Digital Ecosystem, bridging research outputs with applied technological solutions.
For instance, some of the case studies concern multi-hazard assessment to be used for existing linear critical infrastructure, such as road and rail networks, pipelines and distribution networks for energy purposes, hydraulic networks for civil purposes, and punctual infrastructure. Scenario simulation criteria are identified also taking into account potential interactions among different hazard sources, cascading effects and interdependencies among critical infrastructure components.
Educational results
A big effort is underway to promote high-level educational initiatives, such as the RETURN Academy. This includes a series of advanced training courses for young postgraduate scientists (with expertise both in STEM disciplines and the Humanities), courses that are attracting great participation and interest. Explore what upcoming courses are available visiting the News section of the project website.
Perspectives
RETURN started in 2022 and will close at the end of 2025. It is a research project, supervised by the Minister of University and Research. Therefore, its products are required to have a low to intermediate Technology Readiness Level (TRL). However, efforts are already underway to establish new collaborations with other research projects also developed under NextGenEU funds, to enable the scientific results obtained to increase their TRL and be usable -and hopefully used- by private partners and public administrations.
Background information
RETURN is the answer to a call concerning the creation of “Partnerships extended to universities, research centres, companies for the financing of basic research projects”. Therefore, it is an outstanding opportunity for collaboration and scientific-technologic transfer between scientific research, on the one hand, and private business and public administration, on the other. This is done not only within the project partnership, but also by involving a much wider community through cascading calls.
For this reason, the Extended Partnership, coordinated by the University of Naples “Federico II”, includes 18 universities, research institutes and technical-scientific institutions, 6 private companies and one government administration, the national Civil Protection Department. About 350 scientists are involved in this partnership. Moreover, through successive cascade calls, many other universities and research institutes have joined the project, totalling more than 1000 scientists currently engaged.
