Integration of Copernicus Data and Services to Assess Local Aridity Conditions in the Apulian Context: The Case of Marina di Ginosa

Water is a fundamental element for life on the Earth. Its availability, at a local scale, depends on the climate as well as on how it is managed and distributed for human use. Nowadays, water scarcity is a major concern in many parts of the world, also in relation to the possible effects of climate change and urbanization. The aim of this study is to integrate various Copernicus and other free and open data in order to calculate the main components of the water balance as defined by ISPRA’s BIGBANG procedure. The territory of a basin including the locality of Marina di Ginosa, in southern Italy, was chosen as study site. All the analyses were carried out in the Google Earth Engine cloud environment, where a proper JavaScript code was developed. The estimation made it possible to retrieve monthly maps of the hydrological variables from October 2015 to September 2018 at a geometric resolution of 10 m, and to assess local drought conditions by applying the FAO-UNEP aridity index. Even if this approach is affected by uncertainties owing to the schematic representation of the natural processes, it is a valuable tool for analyzing the spatial and temporal fluctuations of the water resource availability, especially in critical areas of southern Italy.