Rendina, Italy

Contact the Rendina study site team

2010-11-23T14:36:45Z

Institute full name:	Research Institute for Hydrogeological Protection – Italian National Research Council
Institute acronym:	CNR
Institute profile:	The group is made of researchers from the Florence Unit of Applied Pedology and the Bari Section with the further participation of researchers of the Bari Polytecnique. Expertise spans over soil, hillslope and catchment hydrology, geomorphology, geology, desertification and modelling.
Website	http://www.irpi.cnr.it/en/welcome_en.htm
Address	Sci. coordination: CNR-IRPI, Piazzale Cascine 15, 50144 Firenze, Italy – fax +39 055321148; cooperating institutions: CNR-IRPI, Via Amendola 122/I, 70126 Bari, Italy; Dept of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DICA) - Technical University of Bari, Via Orabona 4, 70 125 Bari, Italy
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Involved personnel

(Florence Unit)

Name	Contact details	Key qualifications	Photo
Dr. Lorenzo Borselli CNR coordinator	Tel: +39 0553288290 E-mail: borselli@irpi.fi.cnr.it	Geologist, specialist in soil erosion, hillslope and catchment hydrology, modelling.
Dr. Fabrizio Ungaro	Tel:+39 0553288390 E-mail: fabrizio.ungaro@irpi.fi.cnr.it (Florence Unit)	Soil scientist, specialist in geostatistics, soil hydrology, soil physics.
Dr. Dino Torri	Tel: +39 0553288290 E-mail: dino.torri@irpi.fi.cnr.it (Florence Unit)	Specialist in soil erosion, hillslope and catchment hydrology, desertification, modelling.
Dr. M. Pilar Salvador Sanchis	Tel: +39 0553288290 E-mail: pilar.salvador@irpi.fi.cnr.it (Florence Unit)	Soil scientist, specialist in soil erosion, vegetation role in hydrology and erosion, modelling.
Dr. Marta Susana Yanez	Tel: +39 0553288290 E-mail: Marta.Yanez@irpi.fi.cnr.it (Florence Unit)	Soil scientist, expert in soil erosion
Dr. Francesca Santaloia	Tel.: +39 080 5929585 E.mail: f.santaloia@ba.irpi.cnr.it (Bari Unit)	Engineering geologist, expert in mass movements, slope stability, soil erosion process.

Study site location & description

2007-07-04T13:04:04Z

The Rendina study site is located in Basilicata, southern Italy. It is north of Potenza and centred near the town of Venosa.

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The Rendina catchment is a strategic catchment because of the essential role it will play in mitigating the effect of global warming and desertification in the surrounding areas, under the condition that it is well managed and its functions conserved and improved. Hence the present situation in the Rendina basin is not one of desertification but of degradation, mainly due to excessive sediment production and agricultural mismanagement. The catchment of the Rendina reservoir is an area where desertification has not yet shown dramatic negative effects, also because irrigation and water storage in the reservoir mitigate it. At the same time, saving water quality in the whole catchment requires a catchment approach, which may be complemented by a field-size approach if needed. The former is necessary and the latter is probably advisable but not strictly needed.

More details ... read the full description and an overview of all other study sites
	Read the full study site description
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Stakeholders and their sustainability goals

2011-11-08T14:07:53Z

Major stakeholders

The first and major users involved in natural resource management and desertification are the Regione Basilicata, in particular the regional agency ALSIA, Consorzio di bonifica del Vulture e Alto Bradano (CBV) and the Autorità di Bacino del Fiume Ofanto, which coincide with the Autorità di Bacino della Puglia(AbP). The first two showed an immediate interest in our project. They are our main two stakeholders at watershed scale.

ALSIA (Agenzia Lucana di Sviluppo e di Innovazione in Agricoltura) – Department of services for agricultural development , Experimental Farm GAUDIANO, SS.93 Km 44.5 GAUDIANO (PZ). Email: azienda.gaudiano@alsia.it; Website: http://www.alsia.it. ALSIA is main regional agency of the Basilicata Region for the agricultural and food processing system and responsible for extension services and completion of Agrarian Reform. The role of the agency has been established by Regional Law n. 38/96, and integrated by other regional Law: No. 21/98, 61/00 and 29/01.
Consorzio di Bonifica Vulture - Alto Bradano; Piazza S.M.Assunta - 85020 Gaudiano PZ. E-mail: consorziobonificavab@libero.it. Public consortium. Total surface: 2000 km² (including Rendina Basin). Public institution, established under National Law (regio decreto 13 febbraio 1933 n. 215) to coordinate public intervention and private activities in matter of land reclamation. Competences of the consortium are Hydraulic structures, and Water management for irrigation. The consortium is responsible for the management of the Rendina Dam (Lavello–PZ).

Local technical schools (agrarian/environmental) contacted for dissemination activity (seminars initiated in the 2008) :

Agrarian and Environmental Professional Insitute. Genzano di Lucania (Potenza) Italy
Agrarian Technical State Institute Lavello (Potenza) Italy

Land users. There are several local representatives of the national farmer association and farmer’s unions working locally to support associated farmers in various aspect related to agricultural development and promotion of local production, technical, legislative, fiscal assistance, EU policy implementation and relationships with National and regional authorities and policies. The main farmer associations are:

CIA (Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori): Italian farmer association with 900.000 members at national level and with capillary distribution at local regional scale. Founded in the 1977. Local representative is CIA-BASILICATA; Via Pascoli, 25 , 85024 Lavello http://www.ciabasilicata.org (link expired). A branch of CIA is AGIA -Associazione dei Giovani Imprenditori Agricoli (young farmers association; www.agia.it)
COLDIRETTI (www.coldiretti.it): Italian farmer association at National level and with capillary distribution at local regional scale. Founded in the 1946. Based fundamentally on Christian Catholic principles.
COPAGRI (Confederazione Produttori Agricoli): farmers’s union fonded in the 1990’s, that has regional and provincial distribution in Basilicata (http://www.ssabasilicata.it/COPAGRI).

Note: The farmers' willingness to cooperate with the DESIRE project in a formal way was really low, since they declared themselves not available for meetings, questionnaires and other time-keeping activities. Therefore, in order to collect the information necessary for the project's aims, some farmers were contacted and interviewed in an informal way, sometimes in the field. Only in February 2008 and November 2008 were two meetings with a small number of selected users organised, with the aim of finding ways to raise the interest of larger groups of users (including farmers). These workshops were promoted with the support of the CBV and ALSIA organizations.

Sustainability Goals

Goal 1	Conservation and maintenance of soil and water resources
Goal 2	Maintenance of forest ecosystem and vitality with special regards to functionality to preserve groundwater recharge and water quality
Goal 3	Maintenance of ecosystem through guided adaptation to climatic changes
Goal 4	Suggest improvement and adaptation of current policy and legal tools in order to tackle future trends involving soil and water conservation
Goal 5	Suggest solution to present contradictions in soil conservation regional policies

Source: expert estimate, study site leader.

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»Stakeholders & their sustainability goals - overview

Drivers, policies and laws

2011-11-08T14:14:36Z

The reasons for desertification and land degradation occurring can be environmental (for example due to the climate or soil conditions), economic, due to the actions of people or, most often, due to a combination of factors. The resulting degradation may be temporary or permanent.

To help understand this complex picture it can be helpful to think in terms the dominant socio-economic and environmental forces that are driving the process of land degradation. These place pressures on the land which have particular impacts. Human society may have already made responses to those impacts, or may have knowledge about how they could respond. Decisions about which responses to make may also be governed by a range of international, national or local policy regulations and agreements.

In the Rendina study site, the same stakeholder workshop and questionnaires that were used to identify existing and potential response strategies (»Identifying strategies: Stakeholder workshop 1) also discussed and identified these driving forces; pressures; impacts; and the policy and regulation environment. This information was then used to inform the choice of »Field experiments and the scenarios used in »Simulated biophysical impact of remediation strategies and their financial viability.

Select main driver

Socio-economic drivers
Environmental drivers
Pressures
Impacts
Responses
Policies

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»Drivers and policy context for all study sites

Gender-related issues

2011-03-03T13:37:59Z

More details ... download the poster
	Gender-related issues: Rendina [80 kB]

Land degradation and conservation maps

2009-06-08T12:54:29Z

The WOCAT tool for mapping land degradation and sustainable land management has been used in the Rendina study site. Using the tool, an interdisciplinary team of specialists has recorded observations of land degradation, sustainable land management and recommendations for further prevention or mitigation on a land use base map.

Select map type

Comments

Map version: 4Oct11

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»Assessment and mapping methodology; summary results from all study sites

Identifying strategies: Stakeholder Workshop 1

2008-11-03T12:44:11Z

Participation of stakeholders in the Rendina study site was found to be a difficult issue. It was felt by the CNR, the study site team, that stakeholders had become "participation-tired" and were therefore not interested in participating in further workshops. This was because, early in 2007, a lot of initiatives against desertification had been realized by different entities (manly institutional) which placed a lot of pressure on the second level stakeholders (farmers). CNR was of the opinion that the consultation process through Stakeholder Workshops 1 and 2 being adopted in other study sites, would not work here.

However, CNR succeeded in establishing some links with stakeholders, despite their early skepticism, but had had to follow a different strategy from the other study sites regarding holding Stakeholder Workshops 1 and 2. Instead, CNR organized two formal meetings with stakeholders.

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»Identifying strategies: Stakeholder Workshop 1 methodology and summary results from all study sites

Evaluating strategies: technologies and approaches documented

2011-02-22T13:10:59Z

Stakeholder Workshop 1 identified a number of existing or potential strategies to combat desertification and land degradation in the Rendina study site. In the months following the workshop these strategies (technologies or approaches) were documented and evaluated in a structured and standardised way and their descriptions were entered in the WOCAT Technologies and Approaches databases in order to share the information with other DESIRE sites as well as globally.

For details of all Technologies and Approaches documented in the WOCAT Database (from the DESIRE study sites and from other sites worldwide), see

For those relating to this study site, click on the Name of technology or Name of approach to go directly to the descriptions in the database.

WOCAT Technologies Database

Country	Code	Name of technology	Author
Italy	ITA01	»Controlled grazing in deciduous woods as an alternative to grazing on rangeland	Borselli Lorenzo, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Istituto di Ricerca per la Protezione Idrogeologica

Selecting strategies: Stakeholder Workshop 2

2009-05-21T17:14:30Z

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»Selecting strategies: Stakeholder Workshop 2 methodology and summary results from all study sites

Field experiments

2009-06-09T14:12:16Z

Monitoring activities and flow connectivity issues

Author: Lorenzo Borselli (CNR-IRPI)

Note: because it was not possible to engage the cooperation of local farmers to provide sites for field experiments, work in the Rendina study site concentrated on the development of indicators relating to sediment delivery and shallow landslides (Research Theme 2) and development of the PESERA-L model (Research Theme 5).

Study Site description

The study site is located in Basilicata (Italy) and represented by the upstream areas of the Rendina reservoir. The Rendina catchment is a strategic catchment because of the essential role it will play in mitigating the effect of global warming and desertification in the surrounding areas, under the condition that it is well managed and its functions conserved and improved. Hence the present situation in the Rendina basin is not one of desertification but of degradation, mainly due to excessive sediment production and agricultural mismanagement.

Situation: large watershed of 410 km² (coordinates: 4543166 N, 550356 E and 4523186 N, 583602 E).

Physiography: complex mountain slopes, slightly to moderately steep, undulating hillslopes, alluvial floodplains of the Venosa torrent and fluvio-lacustrine terraces with strong incision by the Venosa torrent.

Geology: alluvial and colluvial sediments, with clayey and sandy granulometry, pyroclastic colluvial deposits, Pleistocene conglomerates, clayey slate and marls.

Pedology: see the soil map in nearby picture.

Annual rainfall and seasonality: Annual rainfall is 500 mm with two rainy seasons, from October to November and March to May. Evaporation is up to 1100 mm annually. BG aridity index is 65.

Main land uses: arable lands herbaceous crops, olivegroves, vineyards and urban areas.

Soil map of Rendina Basin (Classification WRB’98). Source: E. A. C. Costantini, F. Urbano, G. L’Abate. SOIL REGIONS OF ITALY www.soilmaps.it

Monitoring activities

The objective of the monitoring plan is, considering the catchment as a whole and some subcatchments, to produce a set of maps with the identified erosion soil processes (e.g. classification, severity, changes and rates). The main monitoring activities are:

1) Soil erosion by water

(twice a year)

Gully erosion
Rill erosion (density and geometrical characteristics)
Sheet and splash erosion indicators (as pavement formation by and crusting and sealing, depositional pavement and splash pedestals etc.)

(Periodic surveys)

A person living in the area, will alert us in case of intense events and is trained to make observations related soil erosion processes ( ephemeral gullies, rill and sheet erosion and sedimentation, position in UTM coordinates , land use, depth, width, slope gradient etc.).

2) Mass movements

(once a year)
Measurement:

depth of soil layer involved,
slope gradient,
extension of landslides areas,
distance form permanent drainage line and level of connectivity with it.

Control:

position (UTM coordinates)
particular geomorphological characteristics
processes (flow slide, translational landslides, mud flow..),
type of soil
lithology of substratum,
main land use
management techniques,

3) Soil erosion by tillage

(once a year)
Measurement:

upper field border,
longitudinal field border,
areas close to electricity and telephone poles inside the field
deposition lower field border

4) Soil erosion by land levelling

(once a year)

control areas with accumulation of stones at the field borders or in the middle of fields
control scared areas with a lower canopy cover during the begin of growing season
measurement of amount of soil removed or accumulated downslope.

Connectivity index model

		The Connectivity Index (IC) value is computed using two components: Downslope component: is the sinking potential due to the path length, land use and slope along the downslope route. Upslope component: is the potential for down routing due to upslope catchment's areas, mean upslope and land use.
	Borselli et al. (2008). Prolegomena to Sediment and flows connectivity in the landscape: a GIS and field numerical assessment. CATENA (Elsevier)

The fluxes Connectivity Index evidences the effects of the land management practice on sediment production. Prevailing land use of the watershed is wheat crop. The connectivity index is evaluated before and after harvesting (June) when the borders of the fields are ploughed for 5 meters wide.

The monitoring activities let us to identify positive effects on soil erosion and degradation

Connectivity monitoring and analysis will allow assessing connectivity variation and reduction in connection with SWC at watershed level.
Shallow mass movements will be evaluated for their on site contribution to degradation – for evaluating their off-site contribution, by and their own degree of connectivity with the drainage network.

More details ...read the full SIP, poster and an overview of all study sites
	Read the full Site Implementation Plan
	Field experiments poster: Rendina, Italy [1.41 MB]
»Field experiments: design and implementation in all study sites