Soil: A Fundamental Strategic Resource to Be Protected

The soil, together with the water we drink and the air we breathe, is one of the fundamental elements for man. In fact, in addition to producing the food we feed on, it carries out an infinite series of useful functions for the sustenance of life being at the center of a system of natural cycles between man and nature, such as the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and the storage of rainwater, the latter useful to feed the groundwater for the production of drinking water. The soil, moreover, hosts one-third of the terrestrial biodiversity and represents the basis for the human development of the productive settlements, for the mobility of goods and people, for the wellbeing and enjoyment of aesthetic values.

This resource, however, is not renewable and this circumstance exposes to a severe and dangerous risk: rampant and uncontrolled consumption, generated by the reduction of agricultural and green areas, caused by the expansion of cities, buildings and waterproofing that entail a profound biophysical alteration , irreversible in most cases, with impacts on the Environmental Balance on a local and global scale that, in turn, almost as in a chain reaction, generate the loss of precious resources and the change of climate, producing, for the effect, changes also of a social, economic and cultural nature.

The phenomenon of soil sealing generates even more apprehension if one considers that the most fertile natural areas are generally affected. This produces two equally serious effects: the destruction of the rural landscape and the impairment of its functionality in the cycle of nutrients.

The solidification and waterproofing of the soil also produces the phenomenon of habitat fragmentation that determines the interruption of migratory corridors for wild species, the loss of organic substance and therefore the impoverishment of cultivable soils that tend more and more to desertification. This phenomenon is increasingly alarming and risks compromising the entire agricultural heritage, since it weakens the immune system of plants which, as a result of this, remain helpless against bacteria attacks.

Desertification also affects the climate that in urban areas, especially in arid climates such as the Mediterranean, becomes hotter and drier due to less vegetal transpiration.

Another alarming fact that emerges from the aforementioned report is given by the fact that the levels of land consumption in our country are estimated to be among the highest in Europe, despite the peculiarities of the Italian territory in which, on the contrary, it is precisely due to its pornographic and Environmental Characteristics, urban sprawl should be avoided in areas with a high ecological and territorial fragility.

Therefore, the need to undertake interventions capable of limiting this phenomenon and capable of securing the entire national territory is evident. To this end, it appears necessary to make a series of assessments, as part of the management and planning policies of the territory, on the possible repercussions of the various choices of territorial and urban planning.

As it is also necessary to pay due attention to monitoring, sources of information and tools able to ensure and ensure the right knowledge base to assess the consistency, in space and time, of the phenomenon in question as it is the information on land use and land cover are a strategic information basis for the reading and representation of the territory.

 

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