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

Institute logo

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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.

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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
»Comparative overview of all study sites

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

 Source: expert estimate, study site leader.

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 map type

Land use: type Land use: trends Land use: intensity trend Degradation: type Degradation: extent Degradation: degree Degradation: rate Land conservation: groups Land conservation: extent Land conservation: measures Land conservation: effectiveness

Comments

The main land use and management practice is cropland (light green), and in particular the intensive use of arable land for cereal production, prevalent wheat crops, fallow (more than 60% of the entire area), olive orchards, vineyards. Mount Vulture (Western area of the basin) is covered by forests (dark green) varying from birch forests to areas characterized by chestnut forests (cultivated, for wood and chestnut production) and oak. Some plantations of conifers are also present but in very poor conditions. Forest undergrowth consists of broom, thorny bushes such as wild roses and blackberries, ferns. Eucalyptus is also present along channels and roads, still with thorny bushes. The area indicated as “other” (brown in the legend) is represented by the reservoir area of the Rendina dam.

Map version: 4Oct11

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.

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

• WOCAT Technologies Database
• WOCAT Approaches Database

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

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.

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

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:

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.

More details ...read the full SIP, poster and an overview of all study sites
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	Field experiments poster: Rendina, Italy [1.41 MB]
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