Soil protection, desertification and drought policies (Matera)

Editor's note 6Jun14: Sources D342-3

In Italy, there is no specific set of legislation aimed at combating drought and desertification with particular reference to forests or shrublands; efforts and strategies in this area are included in the general legislative framework developed to protect environmental resources and to mitigate landscape degradation. The soil protection policies are also often included in more comprehensive laws and regulations, frequently relating to water conservation. In fact, the overall goal of the national legislation on soil protection policy has been to consolidate all of the previous laws relating to water, hydraulic infrastructures, soil defence, soil and water pollution into a few legislative instruments. This aim comes from the underlying perspective that the subjects of the policy - soil and environmental protection within well defined territorial boundaries – are represented by the catchment area.

Main policy instruments related to soil protection and desertification

Source: authors

Soil protection, desertification and drought policy regulation

At the national level, soil protection policy is regulated by National Law no. 183/1989 (Rules for the organizational and functional soil conservation), which introduced the concept of territorial resource programming and management. It is currently the main planning instrument within Italy, although no “overall” basin plan has been approved. Instead, excerpts of plans for “hydro-geological risk” which aim to identify and delimit areas at hydro-geological risk have been developed and approved by several interregional and regional Basin Authorities. The aims of the law are the functional reorganization of soil conservation and the establishment of framework measures for soil conservation, water resource management and the protection of environmental interests.

At the regional level, national soil protection policy has been integrated by Regional Law no. 2/2001 which, establishes the Basin Authority of the Basilicata Region. Soil protection policy and regulations are also directly or indirectly involved as a part of other environmental policies, such as those relating to the forest sector.

Regarding desertification issues more specifically, the main instrument is the National Program to Combat Drought and Desertification (NAP) that was approved by the Inter-ministerial Committee for Economic Programming (CIPE) on 21 December 1999. At the national level, it identifies areas that are vulnerable to desertification and defines criteria for implementing the fight against this progression.  The aim and objectives of the program were to encourage regions and basin authorities to identify areas vulnerable to desertification and adopt mitigation and adaptation measures.

Soil and desertification measures are also included in

• the Legislative Decree no. 152/2006 on Environmental Regulations, defining the Environmental Assessment Procedure;
• Legislative Decree no. 152/1999 on Water protection, which assigns the regions and basin authorities the task of checking in their areas of jurisdiction for the presence of areas subject to or threatened by drought, degradation and processes of desertification. These areas are then to be designated as “areas vulnerable to desertification” and specific measures should be adopted to protect them.

Main actors involved

At the national level, most of the policy actors in soil protection policy are the same as those listed for forest policies. Regarding soil protection polices, the main actors involved in soil protection policy are the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Infrastructure, representing the National Government in the Institutional Committee of the Basin Authority of Basilicata. Other actors at the regional level are represented by the Interregional River Basin Authorities of the Basilicata, Apulia, Campania and Calabria regions, relating to the river systems crossing through more than one region.

The main actors involved in the administration of the Basin Authority of Basilicata are:

• the Institutional Committee chaired by the Minister of the Environment and composed of the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Infrastructure, Civil Protection, the Presidents of the Regional Administration involved in the river basin and the Secretary General of Basin Authority;
• the Technical Committee chaired by the Secretary General and composed of representatives of government and regional administrations, the director of the Basilicata region agency for the protection of environment (ARPAB), experts of high scientific value of the University, and a representative of the Civil Protection;
• Secretary General, Head of the Technical Secretariat works directly with the central governments, regional authorities and other local authorities;
• Technical and Operational Secretariat defines the organizational structure of the office, the scheme of operation and the allocation of internal staff duties.

Other actors involved in the different laws are the state, regions, provinces, municipalities, basin authorities, universities and other research institutions as well as the national and regional environmental protection agencies that ensure the execution of the different competencies.

Implementation, impacts, effectiveness of soil protection policy, desertification and drought policies

The basic operational instrument for soil protection policies is the Basin Plan, as provided by national law no. 183/89 and adopted at the regional level by regional laws no. 2/2001. The BP is a spatial plan representing the basic regulatory, technical and operational instruments defining the planned and scheduled actions and regulations for the conservation, protection and enhancement of soil and the proper use of water on the basis of the physical and environmental characteristics of the catchment area. The information contained in the Basin Plan is implemented through a three-year Program of Intervention (maintenance and repairs, studies and surveys, comprehensive plans, feasibility studies and executive plans for soil conservation).

The impacts of soil protection policy in the study area are generally distributed over a large scale and the greater impacts are likely to be detectable in the medium to long-term. However, the effectiveness of soil protection policy can already be detected.

The activities of the Basin Authority of Basilicata in the last decade have created a substantial increase in knowledge in all of the regional catchment areas and have produced thematic maps fundamental for the planning of interventions. Among the thematic maps produced, the most important are the Landslides Risk Map, the Basilicata Region Soil Map, and the Nitrate Pollution Risk Map (Regione Basilicata 2006).

Another important field of interest is the analysis of desertification processes. In this regard, the Basilicata Region has been involved in several international projects such as MEDALUS, DESERTLINKS, MEDACTION and DESERTNET that produced, among others outputs, the Regional Map of Desertification Risk which represents a useful tool for territorial knowledge and planning. Other important interventions in forested areas have been carried out to reduce the risk of erosion and landslides as well as interventions to maintain stream banks in order to reduce the risk of flooding and coastal erosion (environmental effectiveness).

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