Reforestation and land use change in a drainage basin of southern Italy

Abstract

© iForest -Biogeosciences and Forestry IntroductionReforestation is the entire process of forest constitution or regeneration even if no trace of the old forest remains (Pavari & Susmel 1961). The achievement of this objective is based on criteria related today to restoration ecology, which includes all those activities aiming at ecologically improving degraded, damaged or destroyed environments (SER 2004). It follows that reforestation should be treated as an input into the restoration of a natural system (Ciancio 2000), given that human intervention is the starting point of the process of forest recovery. Soil preparation, sowing or planting and early post-implantation activities are the beginning of a process whose effects become progressively evident since the early years, provided the anthropogenic activities are controlled and natural disturbances (fire, grazing) do not occur (Iovino 2011). Over time, forest cover modifies the microenvironment leading to microclimate changes and contributions of organic matter to the soil.These processes are the first functional relationships between vegetation and environmental factors of the site, becoming more evident when naturalization is triggered by the presence of species characteristic of the later stages of ecological succession (Barbati 1999).Ecosystem recovery can be considered complete when an artificial system implanted in a degraded environment acquires a set of ecological characteristics, following an evolutionary trajectory leading to an increased structural and functional complexity (SER 2004). Consequences of reforestation are of ecological, landscape and economical types. In particular, several hydrological consequences can be identified among ecological effects: protection of the soil from water erosion, increase of soil storage capacity, increase of basin lag time and corresponding decrease of ordinary peak flows (Maione 2011). In qualitative and quantitative terms, the role of reforestation on hydrological response is related to the percentage of reforested area, physiognomic types, chronological stage of the population (with reference to possible evolutionary dynamics), and dendro-auxometric characteristics of the population (Cantón et al. 2011, Sayama et al. 2011.The above considerations become very important in relation to past and current role that reforestation plays in land management (Marland et al. 2003, Trabucco et al. 2008. Calabria is an area of particular interest for this type of investigation. In this region, after the catastrophic floods of the last century, also due to forest destruction, specific laws were adopted aiming at a comprehensive soil conservation plan, and extended hydrological and forestry activities, including the reforestation of river hills and mountains, were carried out. The above activities affected large areas characterized by soils derived from a variety of geological formations on very steep and heavily eroded slopes. The reforestation interventions implemented from 1958 to 1970 affected overall 120 000 ha, repre...

Impacts of forest restoration on water yield: A systematic review

“…In essence, the recovery of surface water yields depends on reinstating some key hydrological processes such as soil infiltration, groundwater recharge, and subsurface and groundwater flows [ 47 , 48 , 49 ], which depend on multiple interacting factors. Scale of the forest cover restoration, position of the restoration on the landscape, climate, local geology, and functional and structural complexity of the vegetation are some of the potential factors [ 50 ].…”

Bed Roughness Effects on the Turbulence Characteristics of Flows through Emergent Rigid Vegetation

“…Vegetation on river banks and floodplains plays an extremely important role in mitigating the adverse anthropogenic effects on the environment [1][2][3][4][5], especially in the areas most affected by human alterations (presence of bridge piers and abutments, pipelines, etc.) [6][7][8].…”

Disboscamenti in Calabria: cause storiche, conseguenze e rimedi

“…In termini di incremento, mentre nel primo cinquantennio del secolo scorso si registrò un aumento della superficie boscata del 24%, nel trentennio dal 1955 al 1986, periodo entro cui ricade gran parte dei massicci interventi di riforestazione, la superficie forestale è aumentata dell'83%%; in particolare, del 61%, dal 195561%, dal al 197361%, dal da quest'ultimo anno al 1986. I rimboschimenti e gli interventi di recupero dei boschi degradati, oltre a contribuire a tale aumento, hanno prodotto un insieme di effetti ambientali con ricadute sul paesaggio (Iovino e Menguzzato, 2003;Marchetti e Barbati, 2005), sulla conservazione del suolo (Aramini e Corea, 2015;ARSSA, 2005;Callegari et al, 2003, D'Ippolito et al, 2013Iovino e Puglisi, 1989e 1990Maiolo, 1993;Puglisi, 1986;Sorriso et al, 1995) sulla biodiversità (Barreca et al, 2011;Nocentini, 1999Nocentini, , 2000, sull'accumulo di carbonio (Aramini e Costa, 2014, Iovino et al, 2013), ma anche di natura produttiva per l'entità della biomassa legnosa disponibile (A.FO.R., 1999;Arcidiaco et al, 2001;Nicolaci et al, 2015).…”