Vitrociset

27th october 2009

Vitrociset was awarded the project of the Ministry of the Environment for the monitoring of environmental crime impact on the risk of soil erosion. Such project will be instrumental to both the Ministry, led by Stefania Prestigiacomo,

and the “Carabinieri” police force in bringing about the Objective 1.3 for the environmental protection, which is part of the 2007-to-2013 National Operations Security Plan, the programme jointly financed with European  funds and under management responsibility of the Ministry of Interior.
More specifically Vitrociset, in partnership with Blom CGR SpA, will supply data, systems and services for environmental impact monitoring purposes.

The project is intended to determine and limit the effects of any violation of environmental regulations, with particular regard to crimes impacting on the risk of hydraulic issues within the four south Italian regions (Campania, Apulia, Calabria and Sicily) included in the “convergence” Objective.
To this end, those technologies and functions of cartographic system Network, that the Ministry of the Environment has already provided to numbers of local governments, will also be extended to regional environmental protection agencies (ARPAs).

Vitrociset project will also expand the number of both systems and development methodologies of the Carabinieri police force’s Environmental Protection Information System, the latter being already funded under the 2000-to-2006 National Operations Security Plan for the development of “Mezzogiorno d’Italia” (South of Italy).
With the use of laser-scanning techniques, remote sensing operations by way of aircraft will provide new digital terrain and surface models for accurate and reliable topographic mapping of in-country areas subject to soil erosion and hazardous to inhabitants.

After being mapped through the use of ad-hoc sophisticated software algorithms, any individual area will be ranked according to its degree of inherent risk so that interventions can be prioritized with consequent rationalisation of financial resources and investments in the territory.  

The innovative elements of the project include the use of remotely piloted vehicles, the so-called micro UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), which will be put at disposal of the Carabinieri corps’ Environmental Protection Units (NOE).
These systems represent effective noiseless tools for non-invasive video surveillance, and will be extremely useful to such police force when performing monitoring, prevention and prosecution tasks against crimes perpetrated to the detriment of the environment.  

“This important result – declared Lorenzo D’Onghia, General Manager – confirms the focus and determination of Vitrociset to cope with the markets of local and central public administration with its skills and experience. These markets are now added to the company’s historic sectors of activity, namely defence, space and transport, in which Vitrociset is renowned. This new sector is now further bolstered by the integration and know-how of resources originating from EDA”.

Until a couple of years back, Vitrociset was the chief Italian supplier of air traffic control services. This historic business has been recently transferred to ENAV and paid for by the acquisition of EDA, a company active in the offer of ICT services to private companies and public agencies. The acquisition was executed last June with a disbursement of 28 million euros.