General information
Following successive adjournments, the 8th Galileo Conference date is 12–15 June 2023. The event is organized by the Interdepartmental Center for Environmental Research (C.I.R.AM.) of the University of Naples Federico II, and will take place in Naples (Italy) in the splendid setting of the Historical Complex of Saints Marcellino and Festo.
Looking forward to an exciting exchange in the historical center of sunny Naples!
Scope and topics
Water is a key factor for life and for sustaining food, feed, and biomass for energy production in today’s bio-based economies but, in the coming decades, projected changes in the water cycle will be the main drivers in shaping our environment and its ecosystems. Whereas the water cycle will be strongly affected by climate change, the extent and impact on ecosystems’ functioning and services are only roughly known. Increasing hydroclimatic extreme events, such as floods and droughts, may lead to severe ecological, economic, and societal impacts. There is currently a need to establish a network of hydrological observatories in Europe that allows testing of hydrologic hypotheses. At present, we lack concerted and dedicated action in the field of hydrology neither in Europe nor worldwide for making hydrological data accessible to the research community and in designing cross-catchment experiments (Vereecken et al., 2015; Blöschl, 2017; Bogena et al., 2018; Vereecken et al., 2022).
The 8th Galileo Conference is therefore centered on the following scientific sessions:
- Innovative geophysical sensing methods in hydrological and critical zone research
- Environmental monitoring and modeling with the support of UAS and satellites
- Data assimilation, artificial intelligence, and hydrological observations
- Using O-H stable isotopes for studying hydrological process understanding and the history of flowing waters
- Big data science in hydrological research
We envision this event being itself an ''observatory'', with the participation also of scientists whose current researches are only seemingly at the border of the main themes outlined above. A valuable opportunity and undeniable advantage of establishing such an observatory are to bring together scientists with different experiences and expertise so that advances can be achieved in both theories and methods. As an example, people working on monitoring evapotranspiration fluxes benefit from recent and detailed studies on root uptake as well as those working with geophysical techniques to better assess groundwater recharge should also share ideas with the ones providing outcomes on pollution vulnerability issues in the critical zone.