Frequently asked questions: landslides, floods and earthquakes

Check the address on the flood hazard maps: you can use ISPRA's IdroGEO platform or the report, which tells you in plain words whether the parcel is in a P3, P2 or P1 area and shows the flood zones nearby on a map. For a legally valid check, the binding sources are the river basin authority's plan and the technical office of the Comune (the local council). Ask the seller too whether the building has ever flooded.

It is the third of four classes: strong earthquakes are possible but rare, with an expected ground acceleration between 0.05 and 0.15 g. It does not mean a building is safe or unsafe: what matters is how it was designed and built. The differences between the zones are explained in Seismic zones 1, 2, 3 and 4.

No. Landslide and flood hazard changes from one street to the next: the same municipality can have safe areas and high-hazard areas. That is why the exact position of the building needs checking. The seismic zone, on the other hand, applies to the whole municipality, but even there what matters is the shaking expected at that point and, above all, how the building was built.

Yes, for fires seen by satellite: the report says whether the plot lies inside a burnt area, in which year and, if not, how far away the nearest fire was. It matters because Law 353/2000 is strict: burnt land cannot be built on for ten years, its use cannot change for fifteen, and for fifteen years the deed of sale must mention the restriction or it is void. Satellites see fires of roughly 30 hectares and above (smaller ones only from 2018): the legally binding record is the municipal register of burnt land, and the report explains how to request it.

The seismic zone applies to the whole municipality: it says how much the area can shake, not how the ground under the house responds. Where the municipality has carried out a seismic microzonation study, the report goes down to that spot: how much the ground amplifies shaking compared with bedrock, and whether the study reports landslides, liquefaction or faults. Not every municipality has a study: where it is missing the report says so, because not knowing does not mean the ground is sound.

It says how many there are in the municipality and how many have been cleaned up, in every region we have imported. In Piedmont it also says which sites still open are within one kilometre of the address, how far away, for what cause and with which substances, and it keeps sites with clean-up under way apart from those still under investigation: the Region publishes the point of each site. In Lombardy the count stays by municipality, with the name and street of each site, because the register publishes a hand-written address and a site put in the wrong place would be worse than one counted by municipality. In the other regions the report says that region is yet to be imported.