# Italy Integration Research — BeeLifeMaps

## Summary

Italy does NOT have a unified national WMS/WFS service for agricultural parcels like Spain (SIGPAC) or Sweden (Jordbruksverket). Agricultural parcel data is managed by AGEA/SIAN but is not publicly exposed through standard OGC services.

---

## What AGEA/SIAN Is

- **AGEA** (Agenzia per le Erogazioni in Agricoltura) — Italy's agricultural payments agency
- **SIAN** (Sistema Informativo Agricolo Nazionale) — the national agricultural information system
- **SIPA** (Sistema di Identificazione delle Parcelle Agricole) — the parcel identification system, equivalent to Spain's SIGPAC
- Together they manage all agricultural parcel data for CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) payments
- The system covers 70 million cadastral geometric elements and 150 million olive trees

**The problem**: AGEA/SIAN manages this data internally but does **not** expose it through public WMS/WFS endpoints. They only publish aerial orthophotos via WMS, not agricultural parcel boundaries or crop data.

---

## What IS Available

### 1. National Cadastral WMS (entire Italy)

The Italian Revenue Agency (Agenzia delle Entrate) provides a national WMS covering all cadastral parcels.

| Property | Value |
|----------|-------|
| WMS URL | `https://wms.cartografia.agenziaentrate.gov.it/inspire/wms/ows01.php` |
| Version | WMS 1.3.0 (MapServer 7.4.3) |
| License | CC BY 4.0 |
| Coverage | All of Italy (except Trento and Bolzano provinces) |

**Available layers:**

| Layer name | Description |
|------------|-------------|
| `CP.CadastralParcel` | Individual cadastral parcels (main layer) |
| `CP.CadastralZoning` | Cadastral map sheet boundaries |
| `province` | Provincial administrative boundaries |
| `acque` | Water features |
| `strade` | Public roads |
| `fabbricati` | Building footprints |
| `codice_plla` | Parcel identification labels |

**Supported operations**: GetCapabilities, GetMap, GetFeatureInfo

**GetFeatureInfo formats**: text/html, text/plain, application/vnd.ogc.gml

**Limitation**: This is cadastral data — it shows parcel boundaries and IDs but does **not** contain crop type, agricultural land use, or farming data.

**Known quirk**: GetFeatureInfo requires EPSG:3857 projection (not EPSG:4326). A test with EPSG:4326 returned "invalid request".

### 2. Regional WFS — Emilia-Romagna (tested and working)

Emilia-Romagna provides a WFS with detailed land use data, including agricultural classification.

| Property | Value |
|----------|-------|
| WFS URL | `http://servizigis.regione.emilia-romagna.it/wfs/uso_del_suolo` |
| Version | WFS 2.0.0 |
| License | CC BY 3.0 |
| Coverage | Emilia-Romagna region only |
| CRS | EPSG:25832 (native), supports reprojection to EPSG:4326 |

**Available layers (most recent):**

| Layer name | Year |
|------------|------|
| `_020_uso_suolo_ed2023` | 2020 edition 2023 |
| `_017_uso_suolo_ed2020` | 2017 edition 2020 |
| `_976_78_uso_del_suolo_ed2024` | 1976-78 edition 2024 |

**GeoJSON fields (tested with `_020_uso_suolo_ed2023`):**

| Field | Description | Example value |
|-------|-------------|---------------|
| `SIGLA` | Land use abbreviation code | `Aa` |
| `COD_1` | Level 1 classification code | `5` |
| `COD_2` | Level 2 classification code | `1` |
| `COD_3` | Level 3 classification code | `2` |
| `COD_4` | Level 4 classification code | `4` |
| `COD_TOT` | Full classification code | `5124` |
| `DESCR` | Full description of land use | `Acquacolture in ambiente continentale` |
| `HECTARES` | Area in hectares | `1.016` |
| `SHAPE.AREA` | Area in square meters | `10163.28` |
| `SHAPE.LEN` | Perimeter length | `544.03` |

**Geometry type**: MultiPolygon

**Output format**: Must use `geojson` (not `application/json` — the server rejects it)

**Sample query**:
```
http://servizigis.regione.emilia-romagna.it/wfs/uso_del_suolo
  ?service=WFS
  &version=2.0.0
  &request=GetFeature
  &typeNames=_020_uso_suolo_ed2023
  &outputFormat=geojson
  &count=10
  &srsName=EPSG:4326
```

### 3. Regional WMS — Piemonte (agricultural land use)

| Property | Value |
|----------|-------|
| WMS URL | `https://geomap.reteunitaria.piemonte.it/ws/agrigeo/rp-01/usosuolowms/wms_usosuolo_2025` |
| Version | WMS 1.3.0 |
| Coverage | Piemonte region only |
| Bounding box | 6.27°W – 9.48°E, 43.88°S – 46.64°N |

**Layers:**

| Layer name | Description |
|------------|-------------|
| `SauSeminativi` | Arable/field crops (2025) |
| `SauColtiPerm` | Permanent crops (2025) |
| `SauPratiPerm` | Grasslands and pastures (2025) |
| `SauOrtiFam` | Family vegetable gardens (2025) |
| `BoschiArbor` | Woodlands and forestry (2025) |

**Note**: WMS only (no WFS). Tiles rendered but had issues in testing — may need specific parameter tuning.

### 4. Other Regional Services (not fully tested)

- **Toscana**: `https://www502.regione.toscana.it/wmsraster/com.rt.wms.RTmap/wms?map=wmsucs` — Land cover WMS
- **Friuli Venezia Giulia**: `http://serviziogc.regione.fvg.it/geoserver/USO_SUOLO/wms` — Land use WMS
- **Basilicata**: `http://rsdi.regione.basilicata.it/rbgeoserver2016/suolo/` — Soil data GeoServer
- **Puglia**: Regional WMS through `pugliacon.regione.puglia.it`

---

## What Does NOT Exist (as of March 2026)

- No national WMS/WFS for agricultural parcels with crop type data
- No public AGEA endpoint for SIPA/LPIS parcel data
- No national equivalent to Spain's `wms.mapa.gob.es/sigpac/wms` or Sweden's `epub.sjv.se/inspire/inspire/wfs`
- AGEA's "Carta Nazionale dell'Uso del Suolo" is under development but has no public endpoint yet

---

## Chosen Integration Strategy: Option A

**National cadastral layer for visualization + regional WFS for analysis**

### What this gives us:

1. **Parcel boundaries visible across all of Italy** — via the national cadastral WMS (`CP.CadastralParcel`)
2. **Click-on-parcel popup with cadastral data** — via WMS GetFeatureInfo (parcel ID, area)
3. **Agricultural land use analysis in Emilia-Romagna** — via WFS with land use classification, area, and description
4. **Quick Exploration and Deep Analysis** — functional in Emilia-Romagna using the `DESCR` and `HECTARES` fields for apicultural scoring

### Limitations:

- Cadastral WMS shows parcel boundaries everywhere but has no crop/agriculture info
- Detailed analysis (crop type, land use scoring) only works in regions with WFS (starting with Emilia-Romagna)
- Each new Italian region requires discovering and integrating its own WFS endpoint
- Regional WFS services use different field names and classification systems

### Future expansion:

As more regional WFS endpoints are discovered and tested, they can be added one by one. The scoring system and analysis functions can adapt to each region's field structure through a mapping layer.

---

## Endpoints Tested

| Service | URL | Status | Notes |
|---------|-----|--------|-------|
| Cadastral WMS (national) | `https://wms.cartografia.agenziaentrate.gov.it/inspire/wms/ows01.php` | Working | GetFeatureInfo needs EPSG:3857 |
| Emilia-Romagna WFS | `http://servizigis.regione.emilia-romagna.it/wfs/uso_del_suolo` | Working | outputFormat must be `geojson` not `application/json` |
| Piemonte WMS | `https://geomap.reteunitaria.piemonte.it/ws/agrigeo/rp-01/usosuolowms/wms_usosuolo_2025` | Partially | Tiles had rendering issues in tests |
| AGEA ortho (Lombardia) | `https://www.cartografia.servizirl.it/arcgis5/services/BaseMap/Ortofoto2021/ImageServer/WMSServer` | Working | Only aerial photos, no parcels |
| Veneto GeoServer | `https://idt2-geoserver.regione.veneto.it/geoserver/wms` | Working | Only orthophotos, no land use layers |
| AGEA SIAN WMS | `https://servizi.agea.gov.it/openiacs/spatial/wms` | Unreachable | Connection refused |
| AGEA GeoPortal WFS | `https://geoportale.agea.gov.it/services/wms` | 404 | Not found |
| SIAN maps | `https://sian.it/mappeSIAN/wms` | Unreachable | Connection refused |

---

## References

- [Italian Cadastral WMS INSPIRE](https://www.agenziaentrate.gov.it/portale/schede/fabbricatiterreni/consultazione-cartografia-catastale/inspire-consultazione-cartografia)
- [Emilia-Romagna WFS uso del suolo](https://geoportale.regione.emilia-romagna.it/servizi/servizi-ogc/wfs/service-3)
- [Piemonte Geoportale](https://www.geoportale.piemonte.it/geonetwork/srv/metadata/r_piemon:5329a4a6-3c61-479c-bc1f-1d855443342e)
- [INSPIRE Geoportal — Italy LPIS 2024](https://inspire-geoportal.ec.europa.eu/srv/api/records/bdc3819f-baac-47f5-b5c7-822f4577e0f0)
- [data.europa.eu — Italy LPIS](https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets/8c8072f5-2075-49c3-b3e5-56ee58f8db8d?locale=en)
- [AGEA datasets on geodati.gov.it](https://geodati.gov.it/geoportalRNDTPA/rest/find/document?f=html&searchText=apiso.DataOrganizationName:agenzia+per+le+erogazioni+in+agricoltura+%5C-+agea)
