Protecting water resources through an innovative monitoring system. The result of a technology originally developed for nuclear safety, transformed into a tool serving environmental sustainability. This is the insight being pursued by Finapp, a startup founded in 2019 as a spin-off of the Department of Applied Nuclear Physics at the University of Padova. In just six years, it has managed to reach the break-even point, installing its devices in 25 countries and across all seven continents — even in Antarctica.

Water, an increasingly precious resource

We are, after all, facing a global water crisis that is no longer an emergency but a structural condition, as demonstrated by a recent document from the United Nations University that introduced the concept of "water bankruptcy": in essence, the balance between demand and availability of the resource has been exceeded in many systems. According to the UN World Water Development Report 2026, as many as four billion people experience severe water scarcity for at least one month per year. The paradox is that such a precious resource is generally measured with little precision, making it difficult to prevent drought periods, forecast floods, or manage irrigation in the best possible way.

It is within this context that Finapp's solution takes shape, enabling the measurement of water in soil and snow using neutrons generated by cosmic rays. As Angelo Amicarelli, CSO of Finapp, explains to LifeGate, "we live in an era in which the effects of climate change are no longer a future threat but a daily reality. Precision monitoring has therefore become an unavoidable necessity. For decades we have relied on incomplete predictive models and reactive interventions, often too late. Today, thanks to technologies like ours, we can shift to proactive and intelligent management: precision monitoring is the cornerstone on which to build climate resilience, allowing us to make decisions based on reliable data in order to safeguard every single drop of water."

How Finapp's technology works

Since, as Amicarelli points out, "you cannot manage what you cannot measure," Finapp has brought to market the CRNS (Cosmic Ray Neutron Sensing): a patented probe, lightweight and compact, capable of monitoring soil moisture and snow water equivalent in real time and at large scale. Every second, the Earth is bombarded by a shower of neutrons: when these particles encounter the hydrogen contained in water (in soil or snow), they are slowed down or absorbed. The probe patented by Finapp acts as an extremely sensitive counter: by measuring how many neutrons bounce upward, it is able to determine with precision how much water is present in the ground.

"Unlike traditional sensors, which provide point-specific data and require insertion into the ground – explains Amicarelli – our probe operates non-invasively. Using neutrons generated by cosmic rays as natural tracers, a single Finapp probe can monitor a large area, from 5 to 20 hectares, providing data representative of the entire surface, not just a single point." A solution that bridges the gap between satellite measurements, which are often discontinuous and less precise, and the point-specific readings of ground-based sensors. The startup's technology measures water down to 50 centimetres of depth in the soil and several metres into snowpack. This offers a complete picture of the water resource available to plant roots or stored in the snowpack. The probes are autonomous, powered by a solar panel, and transmit data in real time to the cloud; this ensures a constant flow of information accessible remotely, essential for rapid and effective alert and decision-making systems.

The startup's expansion plans

To date, Finapp's technology — with two production units in Italy and expansion plans in France and the United States — has already monitored over 25,000 km of water networks worldwide, making it possible to recover billions of litres of water that would otherwise have been wasted. Over the past year, Amicarelli recounts, "we have seen growing interest in our technologies across several markets, especially where the issue of efficient water and agricultural resource management has become a priority. The geographical expansion into France and the United States is a step towards consolidating our international presence, strengthening our commercial, technical and support infrastructure on the ground."

In parallel, work is underway to further expand the technology's applications, particularly in the sectors of precision agriculture, water resource management and environmental monitoring, all of which are showing growing interest at a global level. From the peaks of the Alps to the expanses of Antarctica, Finapp is building a global monitoring network to enable water to be managed no longer as an infinite resource, but as a heritage to be safeguarded with the utmost scientific precision.