Ricerc@Sapienza

The earthquake (Ml=5.8; Mw=6.3) that shook L’Aquila (Abruzzo region, Italy) on 6 April 2009 and caused
huge widespread damage in the other 56 municipalities of the seismic crater has also provided important
input to reflect proactively on the need to avoid the repetition of similar tragedies, learning from the calamities that have occurred. In fact, L’Aquila and the other municipalities hit by the earthquake represent
an open-air analysis laboratory to reveal and directly see the weak points of the different buildings on the

I have been working now for 50 years – since
the foundation of Environmental Systems
Research Institute (Esri), in 1969 – on building
software tools that help different kinds of users
do their work better.
Some of this is daily management, some of it
is work flows but the power of GIS is the central
power, the heart of GIS is really remarkable. It’s
almost magical to me. So, I’m sort of
rediscovering myself and emphasising to all of
GIS users all over the world to make better