Friday May 31 2024, the kick-off Workshop of the Project “DIECI E LODE – Dati climaticI delle Ex Colonie Italiane E LOro DigitalizzazionE” will be held in Bologna at the sala polivalente “Guido Fanti”, Emilia-Romagna Region (viale Aldo Moro, 50). The meeting is co-organzed by AISAM and the Agenzia ItaliaMeteo. Speakers will include researchers, university professors and the embassies of the countries involved.

The project, which started a few months ago, takes advantage of the collaboration of Italian research bodies such as CREA, Università di Trento, Politecnico di Milano, Università degli Studi di Milano and CNR-ISAC of Bologna. The activities were started thanks to initial funding from the Ministry of Culture.

The project in brief

Italy had a very important role in the birth and development of modern meteorology and, thanks to this peculiar role, it has many ancient and fundamental meteorological data. The recovery of this enormous observational heritage has been underway for some time and, in recent decades, a significant part of this data has been digitized. Despite the many activities undertaken, many documents still need to be recovered and digitized to prevent their deterioration over time. Among these documents are records pertaining to the regions of central and northern Africa that were formerly Italian colonies.

Objectives

The objective of this project is therefore the recovery of meteorological observations relating to the former Italian colonies (in particular Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia, Libya) and all the other territories that were under Italian control and which still hold invaluable data. Therefore, the impressive digitization efforts that AISAM intends to undertake allows not only to preserve an invaluable heritage, but also able the consultation, the exploration and study a significant amount of historical information from territories that are still under-monitored by networks. In particular, the data measured by Italy in its former colonies can provide a contribution of considerable interest to international climatological research. Furthermore, the same data are of great importance for the meteorological offices that monitor these territories today, as it allows they allows current meteorological observations to be placed into a broader context, fundamental for the study of climate change.

For a more complete description of the Project and its objectives, please refer to the dedicated page: https://aisam.eu/progetti/10-e-lode-en/