SYMBIOTIC LANDSCAPE. A dynamic strategy between water management and land aptitudes

According to future projections, climate change will make water increasingly rare threatening agriculture production. The aim of the thesis is to improve landscape resilience in order to face such prolonged drought periods. The strategy focuses on creating territorial devices that can collect water during flood events and release it when necessary underground or to the surface. The research is carried out in the territory of the Reclamation Consortium of Ferrara, one of the most endangered areas of the Po river plain in Italy. By generating alternative scenarios related to IPCC forecasts and agricultural techniques evolution (from traditional to precision one), the project develops an intervention methodology based on the soils’ productivity analysis: through satellite imagery, it is possible to accurately discern suitable (low productive) areas to be transformed in water reservoirs, infiltration forests and aquifer recharge spots. Such “soil aptitude” informs potential transformations at various scales. For example, the implementation of ecological corridors parallel to the coast allows to fight saltwater intrusion mitigating desertification effects and saving the productivity of nearby zones. More local interventions, as the ones developed in the three case-studies presented, can also provide security for rural settlements from flooding, reduce the risk of pollution thanks to waste water phytoremediation and, at the same time, generate new landscapes opportunities for leisure and recreation. Such symbiotic vision demonstrates how, if we want to keep farming productivity in the future, a deep re-setting of agricultural land-use is needed and the new corresponding landscape has to be rooted on soil aptitudes.