TORRENT
Specific objective: SO 4 - Promoting climate change adaptation and disaster risk prevention, resilience, taking into account eco-system based approaches
Typology: Standard project
Due to increasingly frequent extreme weather events, particularly in light of current climate change, precise and effective planning of torrent control measures has become an essential tool for preventing geo-hydrological risks. This type of risk knows no administrative boundaries; therefore, in vulnerable areas such as Italy and Slovenia, the adoption of joint strategies to improve watercourse management and protect infrastructure, property, and lives is of vital importance. Furthermore, modern planning of interventions requires a watershed-level approach, even in cross-border cases. Therefore, cooperation among public authorities, sectoral agencies, and research organizations is the only way to exchange diverse perspectives and knowledge, enabling the development of joint solutions based on a broader view of shared challenges. The TORRENT project was specifically designed to establish common and transnational guidelines for monitoring the condition and functionality of torrential stream control structures, as well as for assessing the long-term effectiveness of these structures, prioritizing maintenance interventions, and improving watershed management strategies.
The project established common and transnational guidelines for monitoring the condition and functionality of torrential stream control structures.
It assessed the long-term effectiveness of these structures on individual watercourses.
It prioritized maintenance interventions and improved watershed management strategies.
The TORRENT project established common guidelines for the design and maintenance of torrential flood protection structures, providing stakeholders with simple, fast, and user-friendly tools (e.g., a maintenance priority index, a shared database of structures, and a multi-temporal DMV). The TORRENT project also collected and facilitated the exchange of historical data related to geo-hydrological processes, HRT research, information on torrential flood control structures, and mitigation strategies, which enabled the development of an innovative common methodology. As part of the project, a pilot initiative was launched, demonstrating the usefulness of the common methodology and providing common guidelines for addressing watershed management issues in Italy and Slovenia.
