CEFU

CEFU CEntro FUnzionale per la previsione, la prevenzione e il monitoraggio dei rischi e l’allertamento ai fini di protezione civile is a component of the Civil Protection Service of Campania Region (Italy), whose mission is to protect people, their environment, property and cultural heritages in the event of major natural or manmade disasters.

CEFU expertise concerns:

i) implementing monitoring systems for forecasting or assessing critical events;

ii) implementing warning systems for mitigating loss in case of natural and anthropogenic hazardous events;

iii) developing plans for preventing, managing and overcoming critical events.

CEFU expertise is particularly high, provided that Campania is one of the regions characterised by the highest level of risks, including volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, mudflows and flood risks. The exposure to risk scenarios is exacerbated by the high density of residential population and industrial settlements within the most hazardous areas.

CEFU has been also involved in emergency exercises at regional or national scales, involving complex evacuation operations. One the most relevant emergency exercise has been MESIMEX (Major Emergency SIMulation EXercise). MESIMEX, funded within the framework of the Community Mechanism for Civil Protection, established by the Council Decision (2001/792/CE), has been designed to evaluate the capability to evacuate the area around the Vesuvius in case of an eruption.

A second relevant emergency exercise has been TWIST (Tidal Wave In Southern Tyrrhenian sea), a full scale exercise project based on a tsunami scenario in the Mediterranean sea affecting the nearby Italian coasts, funded by the EU Commission Directorate-General Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection, within the Call 2011.