LIFE-RII european project

Landscape

In the project area two different kinds of landscape can be identified.

The first corresponds essentially to areas with outcrops of the Pliocene clays, and is characterized by a gentle morphology, divided into long shelves sloping towards the valley; locally erosion of the hydrographic network has formed valleys with scarcely less depth, separated by ridges with wide top. This landscape, with  sweet profiles, is always attended by man and is now strongly influenced by agricultural practices which prevail among the vineyards and orchards.

The second kind of landscape can be found in the valleys, at the mouth at the edge of the Apennines and in the wide plain.

In this area, the river dynamics is characterized by the repeated ramblings of rivers, whose traces have been preserved from the mounds: depositional relief of several meters in height, elongated and hanging on the surrounding land, formed by the current and ancient Apennine courses as a result of repeated flood episodes (bank deposits, channel and route). Floodplains consist of large depressions, "valleys" or swamps, reclaimed mostly in the last century, in which were deposited clay and silt by decantation due to overtopping during floods. Regular water flow is currently guaranteed by the reclamation works.

The plain is completely man-made area, when people, for over 3000 years, has exercised its action on the landscape through works of artificial embankments and rectification of rivers and drainage of the valleys, which have blocked the natural dynamics evolution of the alluvial plain, and through the intense urbanization.

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