Naval disaster Leaving the specific competence given to the Maritime Authority by the law n. 979 31.12.1982 and by the Navigation Code, the law n. 537 24.12.1993 and the following Inter-ministerial decree 28.04.1994, in the transfer to the Ministry for the Environment (where the Reparto Ambientale Marino-Marine Environment Department has been instituted) the functions of the suppressed Ministry of the Mercantile Navy in matter of safeguard and protection of the sea and its biological resources, entrusting the Corps of the Capitanerie di Porto with the dispatch of all the operative activities in the field, here within the surveillance of the Aree Marine Protette (Protected Marine Areas).
The General Command exercises, through the Operations' Center and the Peripheric Commands, the institutional services relating to the anti-pollution surveillance in sea. The vigilance in sea is integrated with a Satellite Surveillance Service, realized in the ambit of a specific collaboration with the European Space Agency.
In event of great emergencies for marine pollution, the Operations' Center works in tight contact with the Ministry for the Environment and the Department of Civil Protection to assure the general co-ordination of the operative activities in sea.
In case of ecological emergency, they look after the mobilization and the co-ordination of the anti-pollution resources dislocated by the various Maritime Compartments, with the help of crafts at disposal of the Industrial Compartments in ambit of a special statement of co-operation. The General Command also holds contacts with the Staff Corps of the Navy for the use of M.M. (Marina Militare – Military Navy) naval units specialized in the purification of marine pollution and with the Department of Civil Protection in those cases in which, in regime of great environmental emergency, it is necessary to mobilize resources on the entire national territory.
The communications afferent the presence or the menace of pollution are elaborated and examined by the General Command in relation to the quantity and quality of spilled or in potential danger of being spilled of polluting material (hydrocarbons or other noxious substances).
At this aim, at the General Command, in the year 1995, in ambit of the 3rd Division – Plans and Operations – The Servizio di Telerilevamento Ambientale e Istituzionale della Guardia Costiera (S.T.A.I.) (the Coast Guards Institutional and Environmental Service of Remote Sensing) has been instituted.
S.T.A.I. SERVICE
This service has the task to pre-dispose and plan missions/campaigns of remote sensing with the aircraft of the Corps and to analyse the surveyed data with the special on-board equipment, in order to gain useful information for the protection of the marine environment, the control of the Maritime State Property and, generally, the surveillance of all activities exercised in sea and along the coasts.
Remote-sensing missions are realized thanks to Vinten aero-photographic systems and Daedalus infrared/ultraviolet multispectral sensors , which allow a detailed analysis of the coastal areas and marine waters, optimizing the institutional activity of surveillance in the territorial sea and on the jurisdictional State Property.
The elaboration of the electro-optical data is executed by the General Commands’ Operations’ Center, through special informatics instruments, by specialized personnel of the Corps.
The following interpretation of the aerophotographs and multi-spectral images, operated by the staff itself, allow the gaining of information on the examined coastal zones, as well under the ecological profile (survey of pollution and control of the state of the marine ecosystems), as well geological (erosion of the coasts, asset of the coastal territory), and, in the end, of the activity of Criminal Investigation (control of the abusive drain-pipes, prevention and repression of illegal building on the Maritime State Property, vigilance on the fishing activity).
Other tasks of the of the S.T.A.I. are the standardization of the remote sensing procedures, the emanation of relating operative publications and the training of the fixed flight crews in the use of the equipment and in maintaining the sensors efficient.
At the 3rd Flight Group of Pescara the Aero Remote Sensing Section is active and is a integrative part of the S.T.A.I. At this section has been delegated the task of executing the missions of remote sensing, as well as the stocking and the maintaining all the materials and equipment afferent the Service itself in full efficiency.
