GARR in Bari for the “Profondamente Terrestri” event of the MEET Project

On Tuesday 30 September, at the Bari Chamber of Commerce, a day entirely dedicated to the MEET project (Monitoring Earth’s Evolution and Tectonics) took place. The project is coordinated by the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) and funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP).

The event, entitled “Profondamente Terrestri”, featured meetings, debates and round tables with representatives from both the public and private sectors to present the innovations that are reshaping the future of Earth Sciences. During the day, two new open data portals were launched: the Italian Platform for Solid Earth Science (IPSES) and the Platform for Earth Observation from Space (PEOS). In addition, three round tables were held on data, HPC and connectivity; Earth observation from space; and the role of research infrastructures in a risk society.

Among the keynote speakers was GARR Director Claudia Battista, who joined the panel “Data, HPC and connectivity: Major NRRP Investments and the European Perspective” together with Tomaso Esposti Ongaro (INGV) and Pierfrancesco Dellino (University of Bari).
The talk was an opportunity to showcase the results of the two NRRP projects in which GARR is involved (ICSC and TeRABIT). All planned activities were completed 100% ahead of the projects’ conclusion, delivering a powerful and reliable infrastructure even in areas that previously lacked fibre optic connections, such as Sardinia and the Gran Sasso tunnel in Abruzzo.

Claudia Battista highlighted the impact of investment in advanced connectivity for both the MEET project and INGV activities. Thanks to its low latency and extremely high bandwidth, the GARR-T fibre optic network enables the real-time transmission and secure management of large volumes of data from geophysical observatories, satellites and seismic and marine monitoring systems.
It also provides access to supercomputing centres developed and enhanced through the ICSC and TeRABIT projects, supports the implementation of distributed storage solutions, and ensures immediate access to national platforms for Earth Sciences and Space observation, such as IPSES and PEOS. This makes advanced analyses possible, reduces the digital divide in remote observation sites, and strengthens monitoring capacity in complex areas.

Finally, in Sardinia, the establishment of a new GARR PoP at the former Sos Enattos mine supports the candidacy of the Einstein Telescope and projects such as the FABER geophysical observatory and ET-SunLAB, reaffirming the role of the network not only as a connectivity infrastructure, but also as a key enabler of cutting-edge scientific research.

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