CRIEP participates – within the partner University of Padua – in LIFE PHOENIX (Perfluorinated compounds Holistic Environmental Interinstitutional eXperience), a community research project funded by the European Commission and coordinated by the Veneto Region.
The associated partners are the Veneto Region, Azienda Zero (public government authority of the Veneto Region in the health sector), the Regional Agency for Environmental Prevention and Protection of the Veneto (ARPAV), the National Research Council – Institute for Water Research (CNR-IRSA) and the University of Padua. LIFE-PHOENIX activities started in September 2017 and will end in March 2021.
The project deals with the analysis of the case study of water contamination from mobile and persistent organic substances (PFAS), which affected the groundwater area of the lower-middle Agno valley, between the provinces of Vicenza and Padua, due to the high density of industries and production sites. The CRIEP research group, under the scientific responsibility of prof. Luciano Greco, is engaged in the analysis of the socio-economic impact of the project (since April 2019) and in a cost-effectiveness analysis aimed at estimating the health costs incurred by the Region for screening and surveillance on the population and assessing its operational and managerial efficiency (since February 2020).
The objective of the project is the definition of an inter-institutional governance model, supported by innovative forecasting systems and targeted mitigation strategies, which allows a timely and effective management of the risks deriving from the polluting phenomenon and which is exportable to other European Union member countries.