Premium Agricultural Measures for Hydraulic and Hydrogeological Risk Mitigation

Alexander Palummo

University of Florence, Florence, Tuscany, Italy

Abstract: This is the case with the sub-basins of the Caprio and the Teglia of the Alta Val di Magra, embankment walls — now often abandoned and camouflaged by vegetation — having a strong practical significance as well as symbolic and in terms of identity. Sometimes these embankment walls do not have a predominantly agricultural function, for example because they are used as property boundaries or to channel sludge, but in any case they retain a landscape value. For these reasons they deserve to be preserved and therefore also detected by GIS mapping, during extensive surveys in fluvial tracts.

With the analysis of land use changes it has been possible to identify the situations where landscape restoration was required (often former olive groves, vineyards and terraced orchards which have undergone km of forestation): the abandonment trend has not declined sufficiently and if the neglect of walls does not stop, there will be a proportional increase in the exposure to the risk of hydrogeological instability in the areas involved.

Key words: river restoration, hydrogeological risk, land planning, geographic information system