Territorial framework
(932.43 KB)LIFE RII project concerns the water streams and their watersheds belonging to the piedmont belt of Albinea, Bibbiano, Quattro Castella and San Polo d'Enza Municipalities (Reggio Emilia Province). The lower order river network that catches the mountain area is made of small water streams (“rii” in Italian language) 1-2 metres wide with intermittent flow (torrential) due to the steepness of the slopes.
Flowing from the hill to the plain, in the belt adjacent to the foothills, the water streams hit wide urbanized areas where often their natural form is modified and altered with canals and underground pipes.
Downstream of the urbanized areas, water streams flows are often altered by narrow levees and/or suspended canals and they have straightened courses.
In the surroundings there are wide rural territories characterised by high quality production (parmesan cheese grazing lands, vineyards, etc.) that reduce to the bare minimum the space allowed for water streams.
The fluvial areas, characterised by very scarce extension, are in dreadful condition due to the bad sanitary and structural status of the vegetation and to the loss of biodiversity of both flora and fauna.
The area crossed by water streams is also highly exposed to pollution from nitrates coming from agriculture activities, so that both surface and underground waters result to have bad quality.
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The lower order river network also works as a collector of discharges and gutters which again remove the space for streams course and cause the worsening of water quality characteristics.
Therefore, the territorial framework and the types of soil use described above cause in every segment of the water streams courses the nearly total absence of space for flood storage. This condition exacerbates magnitude and frequency of floodings (occurring even during moderate climatic events) that cause huge structural and environmental damages.
This situation of high hydraulic and environmental risk it common in the whole piedmont belt of Emilia-Romagna Region.
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