Dr. Nazzareno Diodato | Earth and Planetary Sciences | Best Paper Award 

Met European Research Observatory | Italy

Dr. Nazzareno Diodato is an internationally recognized climate scientist and environmental hydrologist whose research bridges climate dynamics, hydrology, geomorphology, and data-driven environmental modeling. Educated at the University of Naples Federico II, where he earned his degree in Architecture with an Environmental–Territorial and Geospatial Planning focus (1996), Dr. Diodato further advanced his expertise through postgraduate training with the COMET/MetEd Program of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), alongside professional certifications from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and ESRI. He is the Founding Director and Fellow Research Career Scientist of the Met European Research Observatory, an institution internationally acknowledged for scientific excellence and endorsed by the UCAR International Affiliates Program. Dr. Diodato’s research centers on understanding climate–hydrology interactions across multiple temporal and spatial scales, with particular emphasis on the Mediterranean region. His work integrates historical documentary evidence, instrumental observations, geostatistics, and modern data-driven and generative modeling techniques to reconstruct long-term hydroclimatic variability and improve decadal-scale predictions. A defining contribution of his career is the reconstruction of millennium-long records of rainfall erosivity, storminess, snowfall, groundwater recharge, and hydrological extremes, providing unprecedented insight into how climate oscillations—such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation—modulate water resources and environmental hazards. As a leader of interdisciplinary initiatives, Dr. Diodato has played a pivotal role in establishing the Interdisciplinary Group for Environment and Water Research (IGEWaR), which focuses on feedbacks between the hydrosphere and other Earth system components, including the biosphere, cryosphere, and lithosphere. Under his guidance, IGEWaR’s Future Plan prioritizes ecosystem and hydrological responses to climate change, spanning surface and subsurface processes and emphasizing uncertainty reduction in historical reconstructions.

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