Silvana Di Sabatino
Full Professor of Atmospheric Physics, University of Bologna
Full Professor of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Bologna, who built "Open-Air Laboratories" to test whether nature-based solutions really protect us from floods and storms.
Compiled by Antoine Walter - from insight gathered on and off his (don't) Waste Water microphone!
Silvana Di Sabatino is a Full Professor of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Bologna who turned a physicist's demand for proof onto climate adaptation. She coordinates OPERANDUM, the EUR 12.2 million European project that built real-world "Open-Air Laboratories" to test whether nature-based solutions like restored dunes and river vegetation genuinely reduce floods and storm surge. As of 2026.
Silvana Di Sabatino did not pick the fashionable kind of physics. She started studying it in 1987, and while the people around her were drawn to high-energy physics or the physics of matter, she wanted a physics of the world we actually live in, so she chose the atmosphere. That instinct, to study nature where people meet it rather than in the abstract, is the thread that runs through everything she has done since, and it is why she is today one of the few women holding a full professorship in atmospheric physics in Italy.
Silvana Di Sabatino works on a question that sounds simple and turns out to be very hard: do nature-based solutions actually work? Nature-based solutions are the green and blue alternatives to concrete, things like restored sand dunes, planted riverbanks and urban parks, used to soften floods, droughts and storm surge. The appeal is obvious and the marketing is everywhere, but the evidence has been thin, and that gap is exactly what she set out to close, because as a physicist she is not willing to take "nature helps" on faith when cities are betting real money and real safety on it.
Silvana Di Sabatino coordinates OPERANDUM, a European project that has attracted more than EUR 12 million and 26 partners across Europe, China and Australia, and her own contribution to it is a concept she coined: the Open-Air Laboratory. The idea borrows from "Living Labs", the urban planning practice of designing solutions with the people who will use them, and adapts it for the open landscape, so a dune, a stretch of river or a hillside becomes an instrumented test site where you can measure, year after year, whether the green solution holds up against the hazard it was built for.
Silvana Di Sabatino is refreshingly honest about what is still unknown, and that is rare in a field full of confident claims. Asked whether these solutions last, she will tell you plainly that the durability question is not solved and that her teams are still working on it, monitoring trees by the state of their foliage and roots, and tracking restored dunes with drones that carry sensors to watch the shape change. Her measured view is that the way forward is hybrid, nature integrated with engineered infrastructure, but only once we are genuinely sure the green part will hold over time.
Silvana Di Sabatino describes the moment her work changed as "a shock". Trained as a pure physicist, she had spent her career on equations and measurements, and then around 2016 a project pushed her to co-design with citizens, to sit with residents and teach them to use air-quality sensors, to consult people before deciding where a park or a cycling path should go. She found it genuinely difficult at first, and now, five or six years on, she makes that conversation the very first thing she does on any project.
“As a physicist, when I started doing this, it has been a shock. Since then I have really made communication the first thing I do before starting a project.”
Silvana Di Sabatino is, in the end, the rare scientist who would rather prove a hopeful idea than sell it, which is exactly why her answer to "do nature-based solutions work?" is worth more than most.
On (don’t) Waste Water
Silvana Di Sabatino was a guest on the show once, on the episode that asked her own central question:
Frequently asked
- Who is Silvana Di Sabatino?
- Silvana Di Sabatino is a Full Professor of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Bologna and a leading voice on nature-based solutions for climate adaptation. She coordinates OPERANDUM, a EUR 12.2 million European project that tests, in real landscapes, whether green solutions like dunes and river vegetation actually reduce floods and storm surge.
- What is OPERANDUM, and what does it study?
- OPERANDUM is a European Horizon 2020 project, coordinated by Silvana Di Sabatino from the University of Bologna, that attracted more than EUR 12 million and 26 partners across Europe, China and Australia. It builds "Open-Air Laboratories", instrumented real-world sites where nature-based solutions are tested against floods, droughts, storm surge and salt intrusion.
- Do nature-based solutions actually work against floods and storms?
- Silvana Di Sabatino's honest answer is that the evidence is still being built, which is why OPERANDUM exists. Her teams measure green solutions on real sites instead of trusting the claim, and find durability is the hard part. Her view: combine nature with engineered infrastructure, but only once the green part is proven to last.
- Where is Silvana Di Sabatino based, and where can I hear her?
- Silvana Di Sabatino is based at the University of Bologna in Italy, in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. She was a guest on the (don't) Waste Water podcast in 2021, on the episode "Do Nature-Based Solutions Work? These New Case Studies Will Verify It!", which is linked above to read, listen or watch.
- Is Silvana Di Sabatino the same as the OPERANDUM project?
- Silvana Di Sabatino is the scientist who coordinates OPERANDUM, not the project itself. OPERANDUM is the EU research effort she leads from the University of Bologna; she is the atmospheric physicist behind it. She also coined its signature idea, the "Open-Air Laboratory", a real-world test site for nature-based solutions.