Alessio Domeneghetti

Academic record

Alessio Domeneghetti (Adria, 1981) received in 2006 the M.S. degree in environmental engineering, in 2012 the Ph.D. degree in Hydraulic and Structural Engineering (with excellence), both from the University of Bologna, Italy. Guest scientist for a period of five months at the Section 5.4 Hydrology at German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), working under the scientific supervision of Prof. Bruno Merz on the implementation of a coupled 1D-2D flood hazard model and bivariate statistical analysis technique. He was also visiting researcher for a period of three months (October-December 2015) at Remote Sensing Solution Inc. working on remote sensing for environmental applications under the supervision of Dr. Guy Schumann. In the period 2012-2014 he worked as research fellow at DICAM (Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering, University of Bologna). He has been working within the same Department first as Junior Fixed-term Researcher (RTD-A, within the Smart WATERTECH project funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research; period 2014-2019) and, from May 2019 on, as Senior Fixed-term Researcher, RTD-B; he is currently enrolled as Associate Professor since May 2022. In June 2021, he received the National Habilitation for the position of Full Professor in Hydraulic Structures, Maritime Engineering and Hydrology.

Research interests

The main research fields of interest refer to hydraulic and hydrological water resource management, with particular interest on flood modelling and flood risk mitigation measures. During the Ph.D. he had the opportunity to develop and applied hydrological and hydraulic models of different structures and complexities for the identification and evaluation of flood mitigation measures, considering the mutual relationship between flood risk and society, as well as anthropogenic impacts and climate changes. He has experience on statistical analysis of long hydrological series (such as precipitations, discharge series, etc.) within the framework of climate change signals detection. He is active in the field of remote sensing applications for hydrological and hydraulic purposes publishing a number of scientific products on the leading scientific journals of the sector. Recently, he developed skills and experiences in the agro-tech context taking part to the SWAMP project (www. http://swamp-project.org/), specifically in the field of precise estimation of crop water needs by means of ground sensor, remote sensing and drone, and in the optimization of water distribution network. He is involved within OPERANDUM project (https://www.operandum-project.eu/) he is active on the potential use of Nature-Based Solutions for contrasting riverbank erosion and preventing riverine inundations.

Publication records

He has been author and co-author of 46 referenced peer-reviewed publications (1134 citations, H-index= 20 with SCOPUS) and more than 30 papers in peer-reviewed conference proceedings/book chapters and national journals.

Main projects

Involved into several Italian and European research projects in collaboration with many Italian and International institutions:

• PGRA-Danni – Methodologies and applications for the improvement of flood damage maps in the context of the European Flood Directive; research agreement with the Distrectual Authority of the Po River and other Research Institutions and Universities. PI (Principical Investigator) of the University of Bologna (on-going).
• Digital Twin Earth (DTE)- Hydrology; research project funded by ESA (European Space Agency) for the implementation of a digital twin of the hydrological system adopting high resolution satellite data. PI of the University of Bologna (successfully ended on January 2022).
• SWAMP - Smart Water Management Platform (H2020-EUB-02-2017); IoT based methods and approaches for smart water management in precision irrigation domain (http://swamp-project.org/ ) (successfully ended on November 2020). Task leader: “Optimization of water distribution for irrigation purpose”.
• OPERANDUM - Open-air laboratories for nature-based solutions to manage hydro-meteo risks (H2020-SC5 2016 – 2017) (on-going).
• SYSTEM-RISK ETN - A large-scale systems approach to flood risk assessment and management, belonging to Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions for Innovative Training Networks – ITNs (January 2016).
• SMART WATERTECH - Smart Community for the Development and Application of Monitoring Technologies and Innovative Control Systems for an Integrated Water Service; financed by MIUR (December 2015; on-going).
• INFRASAFE - Smart Monitoring for safe infrastructures; POR-FESR 2016-2018 - Emilia-Romagna Regional founding program from EU (successfully concluded).
• TRUST - Transitions to the Urban Water Services of Tomorrow European project (FP7-ENV-2010; 2011-2015) (successfully concluded).
• Part of the working group active on research agreement between DICAM and the Ministry of Infrastructure for the evaluation of the hydrologic safety of big dams in the light of climate changes.
• Part of the working group active on research agreement between DICAM and the Regional Civil Protection Agency of Emilia-Romagna.
• Part of the working group active on research agreement between DICAM and the Po River Basin Authority.

Academic and lecturing

• Member of the academic board of Ph.D. school EIT4SEM
• Advisor of a Ph.D. student (XXXIII°, Structural and Environmental health monitoring and management-SEHM2, University of Bologna) and co-advisor of two Ph.D. students (XXIX Hydraulic and Structural Engineering and SYSTEM-RISK Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions for Innovative Training Networks).
• Invited lectures (8 hours) within the Training Plan PF370_PR259_CIA_N titled "Hydraulic Defense of roads" for senior technicians of ANAS (Center for Higher Education ANAS-Rome).
• Supervisor and co-supervisor of more than 70 Masters Theses of Civil and Environmental Engineering Degrees.
• Professor of “Urban water supply and Drainage Network” (6 ECTS-60 hours; 2016-2018) and of “Hydraulic Infrastructures” (6 ECTS-60 hours; 2015-2016) for the Civil Bachelor Degree at the University of Bologna. Professor of “Hydrology” for the bachelor students of Environmental Engineering (from 2018 on) and of “Hydraulic constructions” for master students of Civil Engineering.

Editorial board, convener activities, conference organization

• Associate Editor of the Hydrological Sciences Journal (since 2019), Journal of Hydrology (2015-2019).
• Guest Editor for the MDPI Journal “Remote Sensing”; Special issue: "Remote Sensing for Flood Mapping and Monitoring of Flood Dynamics".
• Member of Scientific Committee of the International Workshop “Validation in Flood Risk Modelling: combining scientific, policy and market perspectives”, 20-21^th November 2017, Milan.
• Co-convener at the forthcoming European Geosciences Union Conference (EGU18) and at the XXXVI National Hydraulic and Hydraulic Construction Conference 2018 – IDRA18.
• Referee for leading scientific journals in the field oh hydrology, natural hazard and remote sensing for more than 30 papers.
• Member of the organizing committee of XXXV National Hydraulic and Hydraulic Construction Conference 2016 – IDRA16.
• Member of the organizing committee of the 6^th IAHS-EGU International Symposium on Integrated Water Resources Management "Evolving Water Resources Systems - Understanding, Predicting and Managing Water - Society Interactions", Bologna IAHS 2014.

Main awards and public engagements

• “DICAM Best Paper Award 2017”- Domeneghetti A., “On the use of SRTM and altimetry data for flood modeling in data-sparse regions”, Water Resources Research, 52, Doi:10.1002/2015WR017967.
• Invited talk at DELTARES: “Flood-risk management in the Po River - Tools, strategies and expeditious methods for the management and mitigation of the alluvial risk”, System Risk ETN, June 2017, Delft, The Netherlands.
• Invited participation to "Progettare l'Italia Sicura, 12 tavoli, 1 Guida condivisa contro il dissesto idrogeologico”, invited as part of a group of 144 National expert on the topic; December, Roma (http://italiasicura.governo.it/site/home/news/articolo2287.html).
• “European Research Night 2017” – “Inondazione! Cosa fare se piove troppo”.
• Associate Editor Award 2015 - Journal of Hydrology.
• Lions Club Bologna Awards 2013 for the commitment expressed during the Ph.D. in the field of Scientific and Technological Innovation.
• Young Scientist’s Travel Award (YSTA) for participating at the European Geosciences Union (EGU), General Assembly, April 2011, Vienna.