In Italy, hydro-meteorological data collection has been managed at the national level by the National Hydrological and Mareographic Service (Servizio Idrografico e Mareografico Nazionale, SIMN) since the early 1900s. The dismantlement of the SIMN, which occurred about 30 years ago, resulted in data collection being transferred to the regional level, consisting of 19 Regions and 2 Autonomous Provinces. This shift has caused difficulties in the availability of complete and homogeneous records for the whole country.
Data acquired in the most recent years is typically available in digital format. Historical measurements are instead often available only in the printed version of the Hydrological Yearbooks published by the National Hydrological and Mareographic Service. In the past, few initiatives attempted to partially recover this information, but they focused on a limited number of years and/or some regions.
Within the SIREN (Saving Italian hydRological mEasuremeNts) project we aim to digitize these data by crowd-sourcing the recovery of hydrological measurements from historical Hydrological Yearbooks to produce a consistent dataset. Phase 1 of the SIREN project will be devoted to recover daily discharge measurements.
