The Water Research Institute ( it, Istituto di Ricerca sule Acque abbreviated IRSA) in

Verbania Verbania (, , ) is the most populous ''comune'' (municipality) and the capital city of the province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy. It is situated on the shore of Lake Maggiore, about north-west of Milan and ab ...

Pallanza Pallanza is a district of the Italian ''comune'' (municipality) of Verbania. It is located in the Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, on the bank of Lake Maggiore. History Pallanza was autonomous until 1939 when it was merged with Intra to form ...

is part of the Water Research Institute of CNR, with headquarters in Rome. From 2002 to 2018 it represented the headquarters of the former Institute of Ecosystem Study ( it, Istituto per lo Studio degli Ecosistemi, abbreviated ISE), one of the dismissed institutes of the

Italian National Research Council The National Research Council (Italian: ''Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, CNR'') is the largest research council in Italy. As a public organisation, its remit is to support scientific and technological research. Its headquarters are in Rome. ...

(CNR). Before that, the institute in Verbania was called the Italian Institute of Hydrobiology.

Research topics

Research at IRSA in Verbania is mostly on

environment Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally * Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...

al issues, especially on: *

limnology Limnology ( ; from Greek λίμνη, ''limne'', "lake" and λόγος, ''logos'', "knowledge") is the study of inland aquatic ecosystems. The study of limnology includes aspects of the biological, chemical, physical, and geological characteristi ...

, in all its aspects, including biological, physical, chemical, *

freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...

ecology, * impact of

global change Global change in broad sense refers to planetary-scale changes in the Earth system. It is most commonly use to encompass the variety of changes connected to the rapid increase in human activities which started around mid-20th century, i.e. the ...

, * conservation and recovery of

ecosystems An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

, * aquatic

biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...

and ecosystem functioning, * biology and technology of

microorganisms A microorganism, or microbe,, ''mikros'', "small") and ''organism'' from the el, ὀργανισμός, ''organismós'', "organism"). It is usually written as a single word but is sometimes hyphenated (''micro-organism''), especially in olde ...

, * applied ecology and

biological control Biological control or biocontrol is a method of controlling pests, such as insects, mites, weeds, and plant diseases, using other organisms. It relies on predation, parasitism, herbivory, or other natural mechanisms, but typically also invo ...

History

The institute in Verbania Pallanza started working as a research center in 1938 on

Lake Maggiore Lake Maggiore (, ; it, Lago Maggiore ; lmo, label=Western Lombard, Lagh Maggior; pms, Lagh Magior; literally 'Greater Lake') or Verbano (; la, Lacus Verbanus) is a large lake located on the south side of the Alps. It is the second largest la ...

, as the Italian Institute of Hydrobiology, as a will of Rosa Curioni in memory of her husband, the limnologist Marco De Marchi, to whom the institute was dedicated. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

life in the Institutes was difficult, due to economic shortages and lack of communication. Nevertheless, important scientists were based here during that time: Adriano Buzzati-Traverso,

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza (; 25 January 1922 – 31 August 2018) was an Italian geneticist. He was a population geneticist who taught at the University of Parma, the University of Pavia and then at Stanford University. Works Schooling and po ...

, Vittorio Tonolli and Giuseppe Ramazzotti. In 1944 the

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

section started working on ''

Drosophila ''Drosophila'' () is a genus of flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or (less frequently) pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many species ...

''. After the war, research in the institute became more focused on freshwater ecology. Several limnologists passed through the institute, most notably:

Ramon Margalef Ramon Margalef i López (Barcelona 16 May 1919 - 23 May 2004) was a Spanish biologist and ecologist. He was Emeritus Professor of Ecology at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Barcelona. Margalef, one of the most prominent scientists th ...

, G. Evelyn Hutchinson, Richard Vollenweider, Charles Goldman, Robert G. Wetzel and W. Thomas Edmondson. The Institute entered CNR in 1977, and in 2002 ISE started its existence, with the inclusion of the units in Firenze, Pisa and Sassari. From October 2018, the institute was dismantled and each of the research units of ISE was included in other institutes of CNR. The hearquarter in Verbania became part of the Water Research Institute, IRSA.

Publications

More than 2000 research papers have been published by the researchers of the institute, gathering more than 40,000 citations by the end of 2020. The

Journal of Limnology The ''Journal of Limnology'' is a triannual peer-reviewed open access scientific journal covering all aspects of limnology, including the ecology, biology, microbiology, geology, physics, and chemistry of freshwater habitats, as well as the impact ...

is the official international journal of the CNR-IRSA in Verbania. It publishes papers on

. It started in 1999 as a continuation of the ''Memorie dell’Istituto Italiano di Idrobiologia'' (1942–1998). It is currently published by PAGEPress, is completely free to read and is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

References

External links

*
IRSA official webpage

CNR official webpage

Journal of Limnology official webpage

Lehman, 2000. "We learned how to live in Pallanza". Journal of Limnology 59: 1-3
{{authority control 1938 establishments in Italy Research institutes in Italy Verbania