Macroseismic surveys are central to post-earthquake damage assessment but remain labour-intensive, relying on in-person inspections that delay the production of structured, georeferenced damage information. While UAV imagery and deep learning have shown promise in accelerating façade-level damage detection, two limitations recur in the literature: most models are trained on damage taxonomies that depart from the European Macroseismic Scale (EMS-98), and outputs are typically delivered as standalone classifications rather than as informational products interoperable with the GIS environments used by emergency-management actors. This study presents an end-to-end pipeline that addresses both gaps. A YOLOv11x-seg instance-segmentation model is trained via staged transfer learning — fine-tuned on imagery from the INGV Database Fotografico Macrosismico (DFM) — to detect and classify façade damage according to the five EMS-98 grades. Per-image detections are then aggregated into a single building-level damage grade and georeferenced using UAV GNSS and camera-orientation parameters, producing a GeoPackage directly loadable in QGIS. The pipeline is operationalised through a UAV case study in Arquata del Tronto (Central Italy), an area severely affected by the 2016–2017 seismic sequence, using imagery acquired specifically for this work. Results characterise per-class detection performance, building-level grading accuracy against ground-truth survey records, and the practical viability of integrating the output into established Italian macroseismic-survey workflows

Post-earthquake macroseismic surveying often relies on ground-based visual inspections that are slow, costly, and difficult to scale in the immediate aftermath of a seismic event. Deep-learning damage detectors have advanced substantially in recent years, yet their outputs are rarely translated into operational deployment tools that yield a georeferenced dataframe of buildings aligned with the European Macroseismic Scale 1998 (EMS-98). This study presents the Macroseismic Survey Mapper (MSM), a prototype end-to-end pipeline that links unmanned aerial vehicle imagery acquisition, instance-level damage segmentation across the five EMS-98 severity grades, per-building aggregation under a worst-observed rule, and export to an OGC GeoPackage layer ready for direct ingestion into geographic information systems. On the held-out test set the model reaches 64.6% exact-match accuracy; treated as a binary triage classifier, it recalls 90.3% (65/72) of buildings carrying actionable damage (EMS-98 grade S3 or higher) while over-grading only 13.5% (5/37) of lower-grade buildings, with all but two mis-classifications falling within one grade of the ground truth. The pipeline is exercised on a real UAV deployment over Piedilama (Arquata del Tronto, Central Italy), mapping the surveyed block at 3.78 ± 0.32 s per image. The MSM establishes a deployable end-to-end workflow; future work targets UAV-native training data to quantify operational accuracy at scale.

Each Italian earthquake included in the Italian Parametric Catalogue (CPTI) is based on a single study, with its database stored in the Italian Macroseismic Database (DBMI). The DBMI contains macroseismic-intensity data for approximately 5000 Italian earthquakes. However, for the same events, numerous studies have been independently carried out over the years, with the data of such studies not having been incorporated into the DBMI. By consolidating all available data for each event, it is possible to significantly enhance the dataset used for hazard assessments and the reconstruction of local seismic histories. This approach would make studies of individual events much more robust and comprehensive. The objective of this work is to propose the integration of different macroseismic datasets for individual events by identifying criteria that can effectively merge a large number of intensity data points. A total of 45 Italian earthquakes with data from multiple sources were identified and reassessed through a rapid review process. This effort has resulted in the creation of a new dataset (10.13127/macroseismic/teral024, Tertulliani et al., 2024), substantially increasing the number of macroseismic data points (MDPs) for the earthquakes covered by this study compared to in the DBMI15 (from 2892 to 9328 MDPs). Consequently, the macroseismic distributions for these 45 events have become more detailed, robust, and extensive.

This paper presents the results of a review of knowledge on a dozen moderate-energy earthquakes inthe time span from 1964 to 1972. Starting from the super expeditious studies already available, theanalysis of seismological sources was deepened and specific research was carried out on journalistic sources, re-evaluating and enriching macroseismic estimates for each of the earthquakes considered.The aim of this work is to improve the overall knowledge of the earthquakes considered, the intensitydata of which can contribute to enlarge the data set used for calibrating intensity-magnituderelationships, as agreed with the CPTI15 Working Group

The latest version of the CPTI15 seismic catalogue ( January 2022) includes more than two hundred earthquakes marked AMGNDT95. Their parameters are derived from expeditious studies produced as part of the GNDT/CNR 'Hazard Project' (1993-1995). Some of them simply parameterise data taken from bibliographic references in the PFG85 catalogue, i.e., mostly Mario Baratta's seismological compilation "I terremoti d'Italia" [1901] or twentieth-century seismological bulletins. Others go back as far as the original sources of the references themselves. As part of the B2 Convention between INGV and DPC (2016-2021), a review of these earthquakes was initiated, starting with the most relevant ones, for which a good margin of improvement in knowledge can be assumed. At the same time, first- level research was also begun on a dozen or so earthquakes of low energy, but still above the damage threshold, which for various reasons had never been studied so far and whose parameters in the CPTI15 are still those of the POS85 catalogue. We present here the results of the study of about thirty earthquakes belonging to both categories. The overall result is generally a strong improvement of the available information, from which it will be possible to derive epicentral parameters more up-to-date and more robust than the previous ones.

In Italy, historical research on earthquakes has a long and glorious tradition, which in recent decades has gone through very different phases. In the first half of the 1980s and up to the mid-90s, two very demanding research ventures were developed: the research program financed by ENEL for the qualification of sites susceptible to nuclear plants in three areas of the country (Piedmont, Lombardy, Puglia), later merged into the "Catalog of Strong Italian Earthquakes" (CFTI) of the ING/INGV, and the "Hazard project" of the GNDT/CNR, aimed at preparing all the basic data necessary for a model of hazard updated. As part of these two ventures, for about a decade over a hundred researchers, mostly "professional" historians, have worked to update their knowledge of Italian historical earthquakes. Researches developed by the "Hazard Project" - complementary to those of the CFTI - aimed only at rapidly re-evaluating the knowledge on about 600 intermediate energy earthquakes. Some of these studies, after a couple of decades, are now largely obsolete. For this reason, a work plan was launched aimed at deepening the knowledge on several dozens of these studies, marked in the current Parametric Catalog of Italian Earthquakes (CPTI15) by the initials AMGNDT95, providing them with an updated and, hopefully, better database. This work presents the results of research carried out on 6 earthquakes included in the 1949-1971 time span. Such researches have allowed a significant improvement of the epicentral parameters of these earthquakes and, at the same time, an enhancement of seismic histories of numerous localities.

Recently, a new strain rate map of Italy and the surrounding areas has been obtained by processing data acquired by the persistent scatterers (PS) of the synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR) satellites—ERS and ENVISAT—between 1990 and 2012. This map clearly shows that there is a link between the strain rate and all the shallow earthquakes (less than 15 km deep) that occurred from 1990 to today, with their epicenters being placed only in high strain rate areas (e.g., Emilia plain, NW Tuscany, Central Apennines). However, the map also presents various regions with high strain rates but in which no damaging earthquakes have occurred since 1990. One of these regions is the Apennine sector, formed by Sannio and Irpinia. This area represents one of the most important seismic districts with a well-known and recorded seismicity from Roman times up to the present day. In our study, we merged historical records with new satellite techniques that allow for the precise determination of ground movements, and then derived physical dimensions, such as strain rate. In this way, we verified that in Irpinia, the occurrence of new strong shocks—forty years after one of the strongest known seismic events in the district that occurred on the 23 November 1980, measuring Mw 6.8—is still a realistic possibility. The reason for this is that, from 1990, only areas characterized by high strain rates have hosted significant earthquakes. This picture has been also confirmed by analyzing the historical catalog of events with seismic completeness for magnitude M ≥ 6 over the last four centuries. It is easy to see that strong seismic events with magnitude M ≥ 6 generally occurred at a relatively short time distance between one another, with a period of 200 years without strong earthquakes between the years 1732 and 1930. This aspect must be considered as very important from various points of view, particularly for civil protection plans, as well as civil engineering and urban planning development.

In this paper we describe the macroseismic effects produced by the long and destructive seismic sequence that hit Central Italy from 24 August 2016 to January 2017. Starting from the procedure adopted in the complex field survey, we discuss the characteristics of the building stock and its classification in terms of EMS-98 as well as the issues associated with the intensity assessment due to the evolution of damage caused by multiple shocks. As a result, macroseismic intensity for about 300 localities has been determined; however, most of the intensities assessed for the earthquakes following the first strong shock on 24 August 2016, represent the cumulative effect of damage during the sequence. The earthquake parameters computed from the macroseismic datasets are compared with the instrumental determinations in order to highlight critical issues related to the assessment of macroseismic parameters of strong earthquakes during a seismic sequence. The results also provide indications on how location and magnitude computation can be strongly biased when dealing with historical seismic sequences.

This 2 days-long field trip aims at exploring field evidence of active tectonics, paleoseismology and Quaternary geology in the Fucino and L'Aquila intermountain basins and adjacent areas, within the inner sector of Central Apennines, characterized by extensional tectonics since at least 3 Ma. Each basin is the result of repeated strong earthquakes over a geological time interval, where the 1915 and 2009 earthquakes are only the latest seismic events recorded respectively in the Fucino and L'Aquila areas. Paleoseismic investigations have found clear evidence of several past earthquakes in the Late Quaternary to Holocene period. Active tectonics has strongly imprinted also the long-term landscape evolution, as clearly shown by numerous geomorphic and stratigraphic features. Due to the very rich local historical and seismological database, and to the extensive Quaternary tectonics and earthquake geology research conducted in the last decades by several Italian and international teams, the area visited by this field trip is today one of the best studied paleoseismological field laboratories in the world. The Fucino and L'Aquila basins preserve excellent exposures of earthquake environmental effects (mainly surface faulting), their cumulative effect on the landscape, and their interaction with the urban history and environment. This is therefore a key region for understanding the role played by earthquake environmental effects in the Quaternary evolution of actively deforming regions, also as a major contribution to seismic risk mitigation strategies.

Provides homogeneous set of macroseismic intensity data collected from several sources, for Italian earthquakes with maximum intensity ≥ 5 in the period 1000-2014.

"Io Non Rischio -Terremoto (INR-T)" ("I Do Not Take Risks - Earthquake") is an Italian communication campaign created and promoted by the Italian Department of Civil Protection (DPC), the National Association for Public Assistance (ANPAS), the Italian Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), and the Network of the University Laboratories of Seismic Engineering (ReLUIS). The rationale behind the campaign is that preventing or at least reducing the dangers associated with earthquakes is everyone's interest and duty. Learning how to do so, through an effective diffusion of information on seismic risk, fosters collective and individual responsibility, while encouraging active participation on the part of citizens. The INR-T campaign aims to promote a culture of seismic risk prevention, starting by training volunteers involved in civil protection activities, so that they can effectively and continuously help and encourage the public to take a more active role in seismic risk reduction. This paper describes the INR-T campaign and the activities that have led to an increasing number of involved volunteers and members of the public reached since the first edition (2011), until the fourth edition (2014).

The 24 August 2016 earthquake very heavily struck the central sector of the Apennines among the Lazio,Umbria, Marche and Abruzzi regions, devastating the town of Amatrice, the nearby villages and other localities along the Tronto valley. In this paper we present the results of the macroseismic field survey carried out using the European Macroseismic Scale (EMS) to take the heterogeneity of the building stock into account. We focused on the epicentral area, where geological conditions may also have contributed to the severity of damage. On the whole, we investigated 143 localities; the maximum intensity 10 EMS has been estimated for Amatrice, Pescara del Tronto and some villages in between. The severely damaged area (8-9 EMS) covers a strip trending broadly N-S and extending 15 km in length and 5 km in width; minor damage occurred over an area up to 35 km northward from the epicenter.

In May–June 2012, the Po Valley (Northern Italy) was struck by an earthquake sequence whose strongest event occurred on 20 May (Mw 5.9). The intensity values (Imax 7–8 EMS98) assessed through macroseismic field surveys seemed inappropriate to describe the whole range of effects observed, especially those to monumental heritage, which suffered very heavy damage and destruction. The observed intensities in fact were significantly lower than those we could have expected after a Mw 5.9 event for Italy. As magnitude-intensity regressions are mainly based on historical earthquake data, we handle this issue going back in time and debating the following hypotheses: (a) the 2012 Emilia earthquake sequence shows lower intensity values than expected because the affected urban context is more heterogeneous and much less vulnerable than that in the past; (b) some historical earthquakes, especially those that occurred centuries ago and are provided with little information, could show a tendency to be overestimated in intensity, and consequently in magnitude. In order to give consistency to such hypotheses, we have introduced, as a test, a dual historical reading of the 2012 Emilia earthquake sequence as if it had occurred in the past: the first reading refers to a period prior to the introduction of concrete in buildings assessing the intensity on traditional masonry buildings only. A further historical reading, assessed by using information on monumental buildings only, was performed, and it can be roughly referred to the XVI–XVII centuries. In both cases, intensity values tend to grow significantly. The results could have a relevant impact when considered for seismic hazard assessments if confirmed on a large scale.