Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) (Italy)

The National Research Council of Italy (CNR) is the biggest public research organization in Italy. Its duty is to carry out, promote, spread, transfer and improve research activities in the main sectors of knowledge growth and of its applications for the scientific, technological, economic and social development. CNR is distributed all over Italy through a network of institutes aiming at promoting a wide diffusion of its competences throughout the national territory and at facilitating contacts and cooperation with local firms and organizations.

CNR participates in ConnectinGEO with four units from three Institutes:

• CNR-IIA Division of Florence. Earth & Space Science Informatics Laboratory (ESSI-Lab) located in the CNR-IIA Division of Florence was established to facilitate the effective and seamless provision of multi-disciplinary Earth & Space applications. ESSI-Lab research focuses on the application of information science and technologies to manage, harmonize, and share Earth & Space Science resources and develop Spatial Information Infrastructures. The ESSI-Lab plays a key role in the design, implementation and management of the GEO Discovery and Access Broker, a core component of the GEOSS Common Infrastructure.
• CNR-IIA Division of Rende. The Institute of Atmospheric Pollution Research of the Italian National Research Council (CNR-IIA) has been involved in major national and international research programs on sources, transport and effects of pollutants, primarily mercury, on different environmental ecosystems. Major research programs include UN ECE European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP), the EU ELOISE projects, POLAR dealing primarily with polar research in the North and South Poles, and MED-OCENAOR programme (oceanographic cruises) over the Mediterranean Sea. CNR-IIA is fully involved as leader, in several European and international programmes (i.e., IGBP, UNEP, TF HTAP, UNECE-EMEP) on different aspects related to air pollution monitoring and modelling and evaluation of environmental costs related to different strategies of emissions control. The Institute is leading the GEO Task HE-02-C1 “Tracking Pollutants”.
• CNR-ISSIA - Bari. Researchers have developed competences in a) multi-source EO data analysis with neural networks, fuzzy logic, soft computing, knowledge based approaches for image segmentation and classification; change detection; b) interferometric SAR data processing applied to subsidence and landslide monitoring; c) extraction of bio-geophysics parameters.
• CNR-ISAC - Bologna. ISAC is a national institute of CNR whose headquarters are located in Bologna. Over 200 staff members, postdoctoral researchers, and students are organized into eight research groups and focus on understanding atmospheric processes and climate. Excerpts from the CNR mandate to the Institute: "The Institute is established to carry on activities of research, promotion and technology transfer in the following disciplines: Meteorology and its applications, Climate change and predictability, Atmospheric structure and composition, Observations of the planet Earth." The activities of the research group involved in this project are devoted to climate dynamics, climate change impacts and climate-ecosystems interactions

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Key project participants________________________________________________________

Dr. Stefano Nativi is Head of the Florence Division of the CNR-IIA, leading the ESSI-Lab. He is member of the GEO Infrastructure Implementation Board (IIB) and was co-chair of the GEO Science & Technology Committee (representing Italy). He is in charge of GEO DAB in the GCI. He the lead of the SIF (Standards and Interoperability Forum) European Team. He was co-chair of GEO AIP-2 and AIP-3 for Climate Change & Biodiversity and Water: Drought. He founded and was President of the ESSI (Earth & Space Science Informatics) Division of EGU (European Geosciences Union). He is member of the “Metadata Core Drafting Team” and Data Definition TWG of the INSPIRE Implementing Rules. He was recently appointed Italian representative person for the Science Europe Working Group “Open Access to Data”. Key role on the project: Staff working for the beneficiary – Responsible of WP4 and

Paolo Mazzetti holds a degree in Electronic Engineering and began working on microwave remote sensing. He taught Telematics and Communication Networks at the University of Florence, Italy, for ten years. He joined CNR in 2005, and he is currently the scientific coordinator of the "Geospatial information and ENvironmental knowledge Sharing" (GENS) Research Group at CNR-IIA. His main research interest is in the design of architectures for advanced e-infrastructures supporting multidisciplinary applications. Key role on the project: Staff working for the beneficiary – Stefano's alternate as WP leader.

Mattia Santoro has a PhD in Methods and Technologies for Environmental Monitoring at the University of Basilicata, Italy. He obtained a degree in computer science at the University of Florence, Italy. He has been working at the Earth and Space Science Informatics Laboratory (ESSI-Lab) of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) since 2007. His main research interests are semantic discovery, and environmental models interoperability. He is responsible of the GEO Discovery and Access Broker operational environment. Key role on the project: Staff working for the beneficiary – LinkedData and semantic services/data model expert.

Prof. Nicola Pirrone is Director of the CNR-IIA and Adjunct Professor at the University of Michigan. He has coordinated over 50 research projects funded by major European and international agencies, including those funded by the European Commission (i.e. MAMCS, AME, MERCYMS). Dr. Pirrone is Chair of the UNEP F&T, Chair of the WG on Mercury TF HTAP, and Chair of the GEO Task HE-02-C1. He has published over 250 research articles in peer-reviewed literature, international proceedings and books. Key role on the project: In-house consultant without payment – Responsible of the mercury network that will be integrated in the ENEON.

Dr. Sergio Cinnirella is research scientist at CNR-IIA Division of Rende (www.iia.cnr.it). He has 23 years of experience being involved in several national and international projects as leader of tasks and work-packages related to GIS and database management. He is responsible of the GEO-Lab oriented to develop methodologies and tools to link Science and Technology through user-friendly products. He has published over 125 articles in peer reviewed journals, books, encyclopedia lemmas, technical reports for international agencies, proceedings of international conferences and technical reports. Key role on the project: Staff working for the beneficiary – contributor to the observation inventory and insides on the gap analysis.

Dr. Palma Blonda physicist, is researcher at CNR-ISSIA since 1984. Her research activity focuses on multi-source Earth Observation (EO) data segmentation, classification, change detection, data fusion with soft computing techniques and expert knowledge driven approaches. She coordinated the FP7- SPACE.2010.1.1-04 project titled: BIOdiversity Multi-Source Monitoring System: from Space TO Species (BIO_SOS), (www.biosos.eu). She has served in the Scientific and Program Committees of many international conferences. She has served as reviewer of many journals. Key role on the project: Staff working for the beneficiary – Responsible for the Biodiversity network contribution to the ENEON.

Dr. Antonello Provenzale Research Director at ISAC-CNR. His scientific background is in geophysical fluid dynamics, climate dynamics and ecosystem modelling. He was awarded the Golden Badge Award of the European Geophysical Society and was invited as a Visiting Fellow at the University of Colorado in Boulder, the BEN Gurion University in Israel, the Ecole Normale Superieure and the Pierre et Marie Curie University in Paris. Author of more than 130 papers in the international, peer-reviewed scientific literature. He is leading the GNOME GEOSS initiative. Key role on the project: Staff working for the beneficiary – Responsible for the Ecosystems network contribution to the ENEON.