Understanding environmental crimes and their prevalence
Environmental crimes pose a significant global challenge, affecting ecosystems and human health. These crimes encompass different activities such as illegal trafficking of waste or illegal dumping of waste in land and water. Moreover, these crimes are often orchestrated by organized criminal networks, that exploit regulatory complexities and enforcement disparities, making it much harder to identify and combat these illegal activities.
In response to these challenges, the PERIVALLON project underscores the critical role of advanced technologies in combating environmental crimes. The project involves testing and showcasing technological advancements through use case scenarios, designed to meet the real operational needs of end-users. This approach ensures that the tools developed fit seamlessly with current and future operational processes.
Four Pioneering Pilot Use Cases
PERIVALLON’s four pilot use cases are:
- Illegal waste disposal detection
- Intentional dumping of polluting substances in land and water
- Transnational illegal trafficking of waste electronic and electrical equipment
- Illegal trade in ozone-depleting substances & HFCs
As the leader of this initiative, our consortium partner Fondazione SAFE plays a pivotal role in executing and overseeing testing and demonstration activities for EU law enforcement agencies, border guards, and other environmental authorities. They will organize 10 pilot demonstrations, each centered around the aforementioned use cases, across five European countries: Belgium, Greece, Italy, Romania, and Sweden.
At the time of writing, the first pilot demonstration has been successfully implemented thanks to the work of ARPA Lombardia, IT-CC, and SAFE. This demonstration focused on testing PERIVALLON technological innovations related to the analysis of satellite imagery to identify illegal waste disposal sites. In addition, the first training activity took place, which offered end-users theoretical and practical sessions related to the analysis of satellite data as well as the PERIVALLON platform and its main features. The pilot was successfully implemented, which was also reflected in the evaluation session of the pilot.
Next Steps
SAFE is now planning and organizing the upcoming pilot demonstrations that will prove extremely valuable in showcasing and evaluating the functionalities of the PERIVALLON solutions. Furthermore, the assessment will gather insights directly from the end-users who are responsible for conducting the demonstrations and will facilitate feedback loops between the technological partners and the end-users to further refine the technical developments based on real needs.
Moreover, two pilot demonstrations will be carried out at SAFE’s training and testing facilities, offering an ideal environment for capacity-building activities and pilot demonstrations in semi-controlled settings.