Renaturalize to Preserve Health: Case Studies on the Po River
摘要
Each territorial intervention, whatever the motivation it starts from, if conducted following the Landscape Bionomic methodologies, thus with a systemic bio-ecological approach, can be an occasion of strategic rehabilitation of the involved territory as well as of improvement of environmental conditions with positive effects on the resident population. CASE STUDY 1: The Interregional River Agency (AIPo) asked to complete the project of the Staffora diversion, beyond the Margine Maestro del Po (2021) A bionomic study of the overall LU of floodplain at the current state was applied to obtain the parameters of the human habitat (HH = 58.19%), of the BTC = 2.21 Mcal/m2/year, of the BF (Bionomic Functionality) = 0.925 and of the information content of the components (gLM = 13.84-bit × Mcal/m2/a). The type of landscape is agricultural-protective, given the presence of forests that reaches 35% of the LU. In conclusion, for the floodplain LU the ratio Benefit/Cost B/C = 1.48 (within 20 years from the completion of the work). This is a forecast fully centered in the interval B/C = 1.3–3.0, therefore acceptable. CASE STUDY 2 As a re-naturalization of a LU even not contiguous to a town could be important to lower the risk of premature mortality. But, will it be possible to renaturalize the Golena di Gussola (a Floodplain of the Po River)? The question must not be misinterpreted, it is not intended to be captious: it seems, in fact, that at the present time the desired renaturalization should not be done. Both the regions of Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna and the Ministries of Environment and Agriculture seem to give more importance to the local trade associations of farmers and poplar growers. These are political choices that are incomprehensible to the undersigned author of these notes, as it is not so difficult to understand that to help a few hundred people, one can prevent the improvement of the health of hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of the surrounding area