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The Project of Interest NextData

 

A national system for the retrieval, storage, access and diffusion of environmental and climate data from mountain and marine areas. 

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Mountains are sentinels of climate and environmental change and many marine regions provide information on past climate variations. The Project of Interest NextData, formally concluded at the end of 2018, has favoured the implementation of measurement networks in remote mountain and marine areas, mainly in Italy, and has developed efficient web portals to access meteoclimatic and atmospheric composition data, past climate information from ice and sediment cores, biodiversity and ecosystem data, measurements of the hydrological cycle, marine reanalyses and climate projections at global and regional scale. New data on the present and past climatic variability and future climate projections in the Alps, the Apennines, the Mediterranean region and other areas of interest have been obtained and made available. The pilot studies conducted during the project have allowed for obtaining new estimates on the availability of water resources and on the effects of atmospheric aerosols on high-altitude environments, as well as new assessments of the impact of climate change on ecosystems, biodiversity, health and societies in mountain regions. The system of archives and the scientific results produced by the NextData project provides a crucial data base for research, for environmental management and for the estimate of climate change impacts, allowing for the development of knowledge-based environmental and climate adaptation policies. The NextData Project has defined three Grand Challenges: (1) monitoring of climatic and environmental conditions and their ongoing changes in Italian mountains and construction of a system of archives and portals for data distribution; (2) reconstruction of climate and its variability in Italy in the last two Millennia, with special focus on the last 100 years; and (3) development of an ensemble of high-resolution climate projections for the Italian mountain regions for the next few decades. 

The activities of the NextData project led to the publication of more than 150 scientific papers in international journals with peer review.

Dissemination activities led to public talks, popular articles and books, photo exhibitions and books, and videos.