GEOmedia

Lettera al Direttore

2025-07-03T11:43:20+02:00

I porti di Fiumicino. Quale sostenibilità?

2025-07-03T11:52:28+02:00

On the small coast of Fiumicino, where the Tiber flows into the sea, the largest river in peninsular Italy, which was historically
the gateway to ancient Rome as evidenced by the ruins of Trajan's port and ancient Ostia there, the construction of two ports for international traffic of cruise ships and commercial ships is planned (one is not yet authorized, the other is under construction in a first batch). We would all have expected that public institutions would decline every approval act according to principles written in the Constitution and in the PNRR of sustainable economy, environment, planning, resilience. But it is very difficult to find in the project's illustrative documents and especially in the formal approval acts, of a process that began several years ago, the reference to these principles and above all the answers to the many questions posed precisely with the intent of ensuring compliance. Of the two projects, the one that represents the real emergency, because its approval is in progress, is the port of Fiumicino-Isola Sacra, a private port, which should host cruise ships. It would be located behind the northern "brush" that protects the mouth of the Tiber, in a 2 km long portion of the coast including, to the south, the mouth of the Tiber and, to the north, the navigable canal of Fiumicino. This artificial canal, today called the Fiumicino canal-port, connects the sea to a bend of the Tiber, and thus delimits that area surrounded by water, the Tiber, the Fiumicino canal and the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, which takes the name of Isola Sacra and which was formed in recent centuries with the sandy deposits brought by the river and with the marine currents created by the waves.

The second port, of which the first lot "the fishing dock" is already under construction, is located on the northern bank of the
mouth of the Fiumicino canal and is managed by the public Authority of the Port System of the Central-Northern Tyrrhenian
Sea.
The construction today of two commercial ports, in a stretch of vulnerable coast and subject to an unstable dynamic equilibrium, contrasts enormously with all the principles of sustainability and respect for the environment well recalled even in the Italian Constitution. Given that the commercial port of the Port System Authority is planned in an old abandoned maritime
industrial area, although close to a vast natural area included in the Coastal Reserve, the hypothesis of the additional cruise port
of Fiumicino-Isola Sacra arouses total perplexity. Perplexity that becomes incredulity for the fact that today various public institutions, such as the Municipality of Fiumicino and the structure of the Extraordinary Commissioner for the Jubilee, support
its feasibility.

To this it should be added that the real and current port for cruise ships for Rome and central Italy is the port of Civitavecchia,
managed by the same Port System Authority of the central-northern Tyrrhenian Sea, located 50 km north of Fiumicino and
leader in the Mediterranean for cruise ship calls where there is already a terminal in use by the largest companies in the world
(Royal Caribbean, MSC, Costa, etc.).

In this article we briefly discuss the sustainability of the project from various sources.

GeoRoma: il servizio cartografico unificato di Roma Capitale

2025-07-03T12:01:15+02:00

Introducing GeoRoma: A New Era for Spatial Data in the City of Rome.
In a city as vast and multifaceted as Rome, managing territorial information is more than a technical
challenge—it's a strategic priority. Over the past several years, the City Administration has
undertaken a major effort to centralize and modernize its geospatial data infrastructure. The goal: to
provide accessible, up-to-date, and interoperable geographic information to support public services,
urban planning, and citizen engagement.
This transformation has taken shape through the development of a modern WebGIS platform and
the public release of new tools for accessing spatial data. Alongside the institutional Geoportal, the
city has recently launched GeoRoma, a mobile application designed to make key geographic information
available to users—citizens, professionals, and administrators alike—in an intuitive and
location-aware format. Fully aligned with national and international standards, GeoRoma is already
proving to be a powerful resource for navigating and understanding the city's complex geography.
To learn more about the vision behind this initiative, we spoke with Engineer Daniele Condurso, the
manager responsible for the development of the GeoRoma system.

Intervista all’ing. Daniele Condurso

2025-07-03T12:10:06+02:00

La realizzazione del sistema GeoRoma, finanziata con le risorse destinate alla Trasformazione Digitale della città, ha rappresentato una sfida complessa. Uno degli ostacoli principali è stata la necessità di disporre di un Data Center adeguato, capace di supportare l’interazione tra le diverse società coinvolte nello sviluppo del sistema — tra cui DXC, TIM, ALMAVIVA
e Intellera. L’obiettivo era costruire un'infrastruttura geografica efficiente, in grado di servire i numerosi uffici comunali e i 15 Municipi di Roma, che coprono un’area di oltre 1.280 km².

Il progetto ha richiesto un intenso lavoro di integrazione per superare le tradizionali barriere tra i silos informativi dei vari uffici, spesso riluttanti alla condivisione dei dati. A ciò si è aggiunta la difficoltà di operare su un’infrastruttura Internet cittadina non sempre all’altezza in termini di prestazioni.

Il primo risultato evidente, oltre al Geoportale (http://geoportale.comune.roma.it) una interfaccia web, dietro alla quale si aprono mondi di informazioni e di dati ora abbastanza open e interconnessi, è la App che nel suo primo rilascio, quasi coincidente con la Festa della Repubblica 2025, promette molte informazioni rese disponibili agli utenti e georiferite secondo le normative nazionali, europee ed internazionali.

Abbiamo intervistato l’ing. Daniele Condurso, il dirigente preposto al sistema GeoRoma, che ha dedicato la sua attività
a questa realizzazione, e di questo incontro vi riportiamo parte:
“GeoRoma: con questa App geospaziale mettiamo il territorio di Roma in tasca ai Cittadini e ai Professionisti”

Gemelli digitali: rivoluzione concreta o solo hype tecnologico?

2025-07-03T12:15:02+02:00

Digital Twins are often presented as revolutionary tools for city management, infrastructure, and environmental stewardship. But what are they really? And, more importantly, are they truly applicable with effectiveness, or do they remain largely a narrative illusion built on unreliable data? In this article, we critically analyze the potential, limitations, and essential prerequisites to make these tools genuinely useful—starting from a frequently overlooked premise: without certified and accurate urban cartography, a digital twin holds no operational value.

Una disciplina in trasformazione tra archivio, tecnologia e paesaggio

2025-07-03T12:36:48+02:00

The IV International Conference of Aerial Archaeology (Rome, 2025) represented a critical crossroads for the evolution of the discipline: from historical archives to machine learning, from theoretical reflections on landscape to scientific dissemination, the sessions outlined a multidimensional archaeological practice, oriented towards the dynamic and project-based reconstruction of the past.