Ecological Indicators: Lorenzo Benini, Vittoria Bandini, Diego Marazza, Andrea Contin
Ecological Indicators: Lorenzo Benini, Vittoria Bandini, Diego Marazza, Andrea Contin
Ecological Indicators: Lorenzo Benini, Vittoria Bandini, Diego Marazza, Andrea Contin
Ecological Indicators
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind
A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T
Article history: This study has been performed in order to evaluate the land use changes and related environmental
Received 22 September 2008 impacts which occurred in recent decades in the Lamone river basin (Northern Italian Apennines). Using
Received in revised form 25 February 2009 the DPSIR indicator-based approach, agricultural land use changes and conversions occurred within the
Accepted 3 March 2009
periods 1976–1994 and 1994–2003, have been associated with the shortage of water in the river and the
modification of the landscape structure. Results show that Lamone river basin in 1976 was mainly
Keywords: dominated by forest (27.4%) and cropland (32.3%) and through the entire period the valley presented a
Land use change
strong persistence of land uses and the main conversions detected are afforestation and agricultural
DPSIR framework
intensification. The hydrological balance analysis results indicate that the agricultural intensification
Landscape
Multi-criteria decision analysis process produced a water deficit in summer periods equal to 0.89 mln m3 in 2003. The landscape of the
Lamone valley became more homogeneous, showing a decrease in diversity (Shannon Diversity Index
values decreased from 1.81 to 1.58) and the riparian corridor became more human-dominated (Human
Habitat values increased from 0.61 to 0.77). An integrated assessment of possible management options
has been conducted, using the MULINO-DSS software as a support. Thirteen different management
scenarios have been produced in order to solve the water balance issue and to enhance the riparian
corridor. Attributing equal weight to the environmental, social and economical criteria, the best solution
corresponds to the sole creation of artificial basins and the actual situation is placed at position 8 (out of
13).
ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1470-160X/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2009.03.016
L. Benini et al. / Ecological Indicators 10 (2010) 4–14 5
The European Water Framework Directive and guidelines (EC, periods 1976 to 1994 and to 2003. In particular, the landscape
2000, 2003) identify the need for a cause-responses approach for structure, the Human Habitat–Natural Habitat values at the
the evaluation of pressures on the environment caused by human- riparian corridor level and the evaluation of the hydrological
related activities and their associated impacts, in order to protect balance for the whole study area have been object of this study.
water resources, promote sustainable water use, enhance protec- Moreover, in order to support the decision-making process at river
tion and improvement of the aquatic environment. In this context basin scale, a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) focused on
the DPSIR framework (Driving forces, Pressures, State, Impact, and possible management scenarios related to the hydrological
Response) proposed by the European Environment Agency (EEA, balance issue and the riparian corridor enhancement, has been
1999), makes it possible to formalize all policy-making and performed (problem-solving level of the analysis). The objectives
management processes by identifying cause and effects links of the problem-solving level consist on the identification of the
between the elements of the chain of human–environment best management scenario and the comparison between the no-
interaction (Giupponi and Vladimirova, 2006) and it emphasizes action scenario (actual situation) and the other options, while
the interaction between society (human activities in the river taking into account both environmental, social and economical
basin) and environment in integrated river basin management. aspects.
This framework has been used to represent the causal link between
agricultural activities and their effects on ecosystems and land- 2. Materials and methods
scapes (Bastian and Lütz, 2006; EEA, 2006; Mander and Koduvere,
2003; Wascher, 2000) and it has been used in several river basin 2.1. Study area
management studies (Borja et al., 2006; Fassio et al., 2005;
Giupponi and Vladimirova, 2006; La Jeunesse et al., 2003; Mysiak A sub-basin of the Lamone river basin has been selected as the
et al., 2005). study area. This is because there is growing interest from the local
In order to obtain a sustainable management that includes authorities, farmers and citizens concerning the environmental
water resource management and landscape planning, the identi- quality of the Lamone river, in particular regarding the issue of
fication of variables that exert a role on the system is required. The summer water scarcity. Moreover, the area of this case study is
DPSIR approach makes it possible to represent them as indicators, representative of a sub-regional set of conditions that can occur all
because indicators should enable or promote information, along the northern and central Apennines and locally in some
simplifying a complex realty (EEA, 1999). The design of spatially regions of the southeast of Europe and it is considered by the
targeted policies requires the support of robust methodologies, Regional Agency for Environmental Protection of Emilia Romagna
extensive data bases and elaboration tools, such as models, (ARPA-ER) as one of the first northern Italian river basin affected by
geographical information systems (GIS) and decision support desertification process.
systems (DSS) (Fassio et al., 2005), so geographical information has The selected study area (geographical coordinates:
been collected and scenarios have been analysed using MULINO 448060 43.0900 N 118350 04.0100 E) represents the hill area of the
Decision Support System software mDSS (Giupponi, 2007; Mysiak Lamone river catchment which is located in the Northern Italian
et al., 2005). Apennines, between the Toscana and Emilia Romagna regions. The
In order to identify how land use changes and agricultural water body is 88 km long from the river spring to its mouth on the
conversions have affected the environment of the Lamone river Adriatic Sea and the study area is 12318 ha, mainly located in the
basin (Northern Apennines, Italy), a land use changes (LUC) upper part of the basin (Fig. 1), representing the 24% of the whole
assessment, a landscape analysis and a hydrological analysis have catchment area. The area has been chosen because the major
been performed (analytical and impact assessment level of the environmental threats act on the middle part of the valley and data
analysis). The objectives of the analytical and impact assessment are more available than in others areas; according to the local
level consist on the identification of main land use change and land authorities, such as the Province of Ravenna and the Lamone River
use conversion trends and their relative effects on landscape Basin Authority, the main issues affecting the river basin are: water
properties and hydrological balance within the study area, for the scarcity and low quality of the riparian buffer in the middle part,
diffuse pollution in the terminal part, whereas the upper part is Land use conversion has been evaluated for two periods: from
quite natural, with good to high water quality values and riparian 1976 to 1994 and from 1994 to 2003 by overlaying and
areas characterized by natural vegetation. intersecting successive land use maps and assigning to every
The prevalent human activity is agriculture; few settlements intersection a land use conversion label. The label has been
are located in the valley, mainly on the riverside. Urban water assigned to each new polygon created by the intersection, using a
supply is provided by a collection system that takes groundwater reference matrix (Fig. 2) that expresses the typology of land use
from reservoirs located in the Lamone river basin and other basins change occurred on the basis of previous and successive land use
and, according to local statistical data provided by the Province of category comparison. The resulting map represents the land use
Ravenna, more than 90% of the direct withdrawals from the river conversion that occurred in every patch during the period taken
are extracted to irrigate cropland. into account, and spatially identifies what has occurred in the area.
Thirteen land use conversion categories (Table 2) have been
2.2. Land use change identified.
Table 1
Land use changes in the Lamone river basin.
Class Land use (ha) Land use change (%) Change rate (%/year)
Fig. 2. Land use conversion matrix, modified from Bertozzi et al. (1993). For an explanation of terms, see Table 2.
in State parameters, are not as clearly related to the other variables, associated diversity changes over time, calculating land-cover
due to the lack of data and knowledge on the area, and they are not statistics and landscape metrics for each map, for the entire study
quantified in the analysis. area. According to the authors (Antwi et al., 2008) landscape
metrics were computed using the Patch Analyst GIS Tool
2.4. Landscape analysis (McGarigal and Marks, 1995). The sub-set of selected metrics
includes patch density and size, edge and diversity metrics,
A landscape analysis has been performed on the study area for which globally describe the landscape structural properties
the years 1976, 1994 and 2003. Changes in the structural landscape (Table 3) (Antwi et al., 2008; Mander et al., 2005a; McGarigal and
properties have been measured in order to evaluate the effects of Marks, 1995; Wascher, 2000). In particular, the edge density (ED)
land use changes on the Lamone river basin, obtaining an overview metric expresses the amount of linear edges present in the
over the 27-year period under examination. landscape. ED is equal to 0 in the absence of an edge, when the
The method proposed by Antwi et al. (2008) has been used for entire landscape consists of a single patch (McGarigal and Marks,
landscape analysis in order to quantify land-cover structures and 1995).
Table 2
Land use conversion in the Lamone river basin.
Land use conversion class Description Land use conversion (%) Conversion rate (%/year)
Pu – Urban persistence Areas where settlements persist during time 0.7 1.1 0.07 0.12
Iu – Urban intensification Areas converted to urban 0.6 1.0 0.03 0.11
E – Exceptionality Unusual conversion 1.8 0.2 0.10 0.02
P – Persistence Areas with no change in land use 55.2 70.9 3.07 7.88
Ia – Agrarian intensification Areas where agricultural activities substitute previous land use 2.4 1.1 0.13 0.12
Ci – Intensive conversion Agricultural areas where an intensive conversion has occurred 10.2 3.0 0.57 0.33
Ce – Extensive conversion Agricultural areas where an extensive conversion has occurred 0.1 3.5 0.01 0.39
R – Afforestation Areas where other land uses are converted into woodland 18.2 8.5 1.01 1.21
D – Deforestation Wooded areas converted to other land uses 6.5 5.1 0.36 0.57
Dn – Natural dynamic Areas where natural changes occurred 0.0 0.0 0.00 0.00
A – Abandonment Urban and agricultural areas converted to shrubs and rugged areas 3.3 4.1 0.18 0.45
St – Stabilization Rugged areas that are converted to shrubs or grassland 1.1 0.1 0.06 0.01
De – Degradation Shrub areas converted to rugged 0.0 1.7 0.01 0.19
8 L. Benini et al. / Ecological Indicators 10 (2010) 4–14
Fig. 3. DPSIR framework of the agricultural land use changes at river basin scale.
Riparian corridor condition has been quantified using the prevalent (Df), 0.80; Shrubs (Sh), 0.10; Fruit farming and vineyards
Human Habitat–Natural Habitat (HH–NH) indicators for the three (Fv), 0.05; Conifer forest (Cf), 0.80; Waterbodies (Wb), 0.01;
reference years. This metric expresses the amount of Human Grassland (Gr), 0.50; Afforestation (Af), 0.10; Cropland (Cr), 0.12;
Habitat in a generic landscape, where ‘‘. . .HH can be defined as Urban (U), 0.0; Urban green (Ug), 0.10. The HH coefficients consist
areas that human populations inhabit or manage permanently, on the complementary to NH per each land use class.
limiting or strongly influencing the self-regulatory capacity of
natural systems. NH are natural ecotopes and landscape units that 2.5. Hydrological balance analysis
are dominated by natural components and biological processes,
but lack direct human influence and are capable of normal self- Water scarcity in the summer period is an emerging issue in the
regulation’’ (Ingegnoli, 2002). The HH–NH values have been Lamone river basin and, according to the local authorities, this is
calculated by applying the mean HH and NH coefficients to land strictly related to agricultural LUC. The water availability has been
use classes, considering the riparian corridor as a 125 m-wide evaluated by calculating the summer water requirement and
buffer on each side of the river. The NH coefficients applied to land hydrological balance for the years 1976 and 2003, using land use
use class are reported below: Rugged (R), 0.10; Deciduous forest maps and statistical data, identifying the trend of agricultural
water requirement and the hydrological balance in the river
catchment. Only the land use map of the years 1976 and 2003 have
Table 3 been considered suitable for the calculations because the original
Landscape and riparian corridor metrics. land use classification does distinguish between ‘‘Fruit cultivation
Landscape metrics Abbreviation Unit Year areas’’ and ‘‘Vineyards’’ classes, which are considered as the main
sources of water requirement. The land use map relative to 1994
1976 1994 2003
presents only one class including both land use classes and for this
Patch density and size metrics reason has been excluded from the analysis.
Number of patches NUMP 3565.2 601.5 833.1
Summer water requirement ðwri Þ for specific high water-
Mean patch size MPS ha 3.5 20.4 14.8
Patch size standard deviation PSSD 30.2 155.0 95.6 demanding cropland is defined by the Department of Agriculture of
the Emilia Romagna Region as the demand for water that allows
Edge metric the proper growth of the plant in summertime (from July to
Edge density ED m/ha 284.3 89.8 138.2
September). The total summer water requirement (Wr) consists of
Diversity metric
the sum of summer water need expressed by water-demanding
Shannon’s Diversity Index SDI 1.81 1.55 1.58 cropland in the study area; it is defined in Eq. (1).
Shannon Evenness Index SEI 0.76 0.67 0.66 X
Wr ¼ wr i Si ½m3 (1)
Riparian corridor quality
Human Habitat HH 0.61 0.77 0.67
where wr i is the summer water requirement for class ‘i’ of land
Natural Habitat NH 0.39 0.23 0.33
use [m3/ha], and Si is the total amount of the class ‘i’ land use [ha].
L. Benini et al. / Ecological Indicators 10 (2010) 4–14 9
The quantification of Wr on the area for each year has been Table 4
Analysis Matrix, Evaluation Matrix and weights. Indicators that compose the
performed by assigning the land use map classes a value of wr.
Evaluation Matrix are written in bold text.
Fruit cultivation and vineyards are considered to be the main
sources of wr in the valley and relative wr values have been Indicator Unit Weight Domain
calculated on the basis of the agricultural data on local crop Driving forces
cultivation derived from local statistical data. Others land use Fruit farming areas ha
categories are considered to be irrelevant to Wr when compared Vineyards ha
Specific profitability s/ha
with fruit and vineyard cultivation, so their Wr has been set to 0,
of cultivations
giving Eq. (2). The Wr is thus calculated by combining the Agricultural income loss s 0.333 ECONOMY
extension of high water-demanding cropland and the specific Agricultural area loss ha 0.166 SOCIETY
summer water requirement for the cropland, which include fruit Pressures
cultivation and vineyards. Fruit driven water m3/ha
requirement ðwr f Þ
Wr ¼ wr f S f þ wr v Sv ½m3 (2) Vineyards water m3/ha
requirement ðwrv Þ
where wr f is the summer water requirement expressed by fruit
State
cultivation [m3/ha], wrv is the summer water requirement Useful rainfalls (P) m3
expressed by vineyards [m3/ha], Sf is the total amount of fruit Water storage (Ws) m3
farming areas [ha], and Sv is the total amount of vineyards [ha]. Number of artificial basins num 0.167 SOCIETY
Summer hydrological balance (HB) at the catchment scale (3) is Hydrological balance (HB) m3 0.208 ENVIRONMENT
Riparian habitat (HH–NH) 0.125 ENVIRONMENT
defined as the hydrological balance between available water for
cultivation and global summer water requirement (Wr) expressed
at catchment scale.
been included in the Analysis Matrix of the ‘Design Phase’ (Table 4)
HB ¼ Ws þ P Wr ½m 3
(3) (see Giupponi, 2007). Indicators of landscape structure are not
considered and only the HH–NH values for riparian corridor have
3
where Ws is the water volume stored in artificial basins [m ], P been included.
represents the useful rainfall for cultivation [m3], and Wr is the
global summer water requirement (1) [m3]. The useful rainfall for 2.6.1. Selected indicators
cultivation (P), according to the Regional Agency for Environ- The selected indicators for the Analysis Matrix (Table 4) are
mental Protection of Emilia Romagna (ARPA-ER), consists of the divided into three different categories: Environmental, Social and
sum of the monthly mean rainfall values registered within the Economical, and express a different value for each scenario
study area excluding the rainfall that exceeds the maximum examined. The environmental indicators wr, Wr, HB, useful rainfall
monthly consumption by cultivation. The values have been (P) and water stored (Ws) are described in the hydrological
provided by ARPA-ER and are based on the rainfall records analysis. The HH–NH values on the riparian corridor are described
registered by the local monitoring network from 1990 to 2001(for in the landscape analysis, and for scenario evaluation it was
the summer periods). For the study area, P is 3.53 mln m3 and it is quantified using GIS, assuming a 5-meter buffer from each
assumed to be representative for the 2003 and to be comparable agricultural area, creating a network of tree hedgerows and
with the P value registered in the year 1976. The water stored enhancing the natural riparian corridor.
within the artificial basins (Ws) has been calculated by the Two indicators have been considered as proxies for social
Regional Agency for Environmental Protection for the year 2003. indicators: agricultural surface loss and the number of artificial
The sum of the P and Ws values represents the available water for basins. This is because consultations conducted on the same study
cultivation. area under the EU INTERREG IIIC ‘Espace Riviere Europe’ (ERE)
Project (EU, 2004), showed that these two aspects represent a
2.6. Scenario identification and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis direct social concern for stakeholders, in particular for farmers’
unions and environmentalists, on opposite positions. Farmers are
Several normative scenarios (EEA, 2001) on the solution of the in favour of a wide diffusion of artificial basins and against the
issue of water scarcity and improvement of riparian habitats have reduction of agricultural surfaces; environmental protection
been developed and evaluated. The evaluation of the best river associations are against the diffusion of artificial basins, and have
basin management scenario was performed using a Multi-Criteria no preference on the reduction of agricultural area at the basin
Decision Analysis (MCDA), comparing the scenarios and the actual scale. These positions have been considered by setting the relative
situation using the software MULINO-DSS (mDSS) (Giupponi, value functions in the ‘choice phase’. The number of artificial water
2007) as a support. storage basins has been evaluated on the basis of the available data
mDSS adopts the DPSIR as a reference framework for the on volume/surface ratio for the artificial basins, provided by the
integrated approach to river basin management. This software river basin management Authority. The loss of agricultural surfaces
provides functionalities to support the integration of socio- has been quantified on the basis of the total amount of agricultural
economic and environmental modelling techniques with GIS areas that will be changed (from agricultural to: artificial basins,
functions and multiple criteria decision methods; it makes it tree hedgerows in the riparian corridor and other types of
possible to define indicator-sets arising from the DPSIR-based cultivation) for each scenario.
framework and guides the user through three decisional phases: The agricultural income loss indicator represents the econom-
‘Conceptual, or Intelligence Phase’, ‘Design Phase’ and ‘Choice ical loss caused by agricultural land use changes at the whole
Phase’ to identify the best scenario (Fassio et al., 2005; Giupponi, study area scale. The values have been quantified by the definition
2007). of the specific profitability of cultivations, referring to the
The DPSIR conceptual framework defined above has been condition of local agricultural production and according to
adopted for the ‘Conceptual phase’ of the mDSS analysis. Only a statistical data on fruit, grape and crops prices, provided by the
sub-set of the indicators selected in the conceptual framework has Province of Ravenna.
10 L. Benini et al. / Ecological Indicators 10 (2010) 4–14
2.6.2. Scenario definition condition. All the scenarios do not take into account future land
Three categories of actions have been identified in order to use dynamics.
define river basin management scenarios which address integrated
water management and riparian quality improvement. The 2.6.3. Choice phase
categories are: The best scenario identification has been performed using a
Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) with mDSS. The MCDA
Artificial basin construction, which improves global water approach avoids many of the limitations of single criterion,
availability through the excavation of artificial basins for spring efficiency-based approaches, such as Benefit Cost Analysis (Prato
rainfall storage; and Herath, 2007). The Evaluation Matrix (EM), which consists of
Cultivation conversion, which reduce water demand through indicator scores for each selected scenario, and the Decision
cultivation conversion from fruit cultivation to wine production Rules (Giupponi, 2007), which consist of a value function
or from fruit cultivation to crop cultivation; definition and MCDA weighting method selection, have been
Riparian buffer quality improvement, which consists in devel- established.
oping a 5-m buffer of tree rows and hedges of autochthonous The subset of indicators, considered as the decision criteria, has
vegetation on the boundary of the farming areas that are located been selected from the Analysis Matrix to compose the Evaluation
in the riparian buffer zone. Matrix. The selected metrics are: loss of agricultural income, loss
of agricultural surfaces, number of artificial basins, hydrological
The first two actions deal with water balance management, and balance, riparian buffer HH–NH. The values of Social indicators
the third one deals with landscape management for enhancement have been normalized using value functions defined on the basis
of the riparian corridor. Riparian buffer quality improvement has of the non-formalized results of the EU INTERREG IIIC ‘Espace
not been evaluated as a water management solution because it is Riviere Europe’ (ERE) Project (EU, 2004) developed in the same
unclear how riparian buffer restoration affects river discharge. This study area, assuming two main representative stakeholders:
is because in order to enhance natural habitat, autochthonous Farmers and Association for the environment protection. For each
vegetation, such as willow and poplar trees, which have an high stakeholder and for each indicator considered relevant for social
water requirement, should be introduced (Guidi et al., 2008; concerns, the value functions has been set equal to the Pareto
Preston and McBride, 2004; Sharma et al., 2001), exerting a frontier (Osborne and Rubenstein, 1994) of the curve that is
negative effect on river discharge. In any case, the vegetation can defined by the intersection between the stakeholders’ preference
exert a reduction in evapotranspiration on the boundary of the curve. Environmental and economic indicators have been normal-
cultivated fields, by the reduction of the evapotranspiration from ized using cost-type and benefit-type value functions for the
cropland. In this work it is assumed that the net effect of the maximization of the environmental and economic benefits (see
substitution of agricultural areas in the buffer zone with natural Giupponi, 2007).
vegetation is equal to 0, but this aspect requires more research in The weighting method used for the MCDA is the Simple
order to be better understood. Additive Weighting (Belton and Stewart, 2002). The weighting
A number of 13 management scenarios have been developed: assumptions have been produced through the use of the
the ‘no-action’ scenario that reflects the current environmental, hierarchical weighting module, reflecting the definition of
economical and social settings of the river basin, and 12 Sustainability (UN, 1987), in which the three components Society,
normative scenarios that aim to solve the summer scarcity Environment and Economy have equal weight. The weights’
issue, 5 of which include the riparian corridor enhancement structure is reported in Table 4. This MCDA method maximizes the
measure (Table 5). Each scenario consists of a linear combina- trade-off between the three pillars of sustainability, according to
tions of the three different categories of actions presented above, the weak sustainability hypothesis. A sensitivity analysis is
excluding the no-action scenario which represents the actual automatically provided by the MULINO-DSS software.
Table 5
Management scenarios at the river basin scale.
Id Scenario aimed at reducing water scarcity issue Id Scenario aimed at reducing water scarcity issue and
enhancing the riparian corridor quality
Fig. 4. Land use for the years 1976, 1994 and 2003.
consequently a condition of water scarcity during the summer revealing the necessity of a better understanding of the social
period. The results confirm that the Lamone river basin is concerns.
threatened by water shortage and the agricultural conversions Also these scenarios have not considered all the environmental
appear to be the most relevant driving forces within the river basin. effects. For example, conversion from fruit cultivation to vineyards
The DPSIR-based conceptual model which has been adopted to or crop cultivation, which have been proposed as possible
describe the effects of the agricultural land use changes is not solutions, might have an effect on the landscape of the valley
specific only for the Lamone river basin but can be used to which has not been considered by the analysis. Moreover, the
represent other basins having the same features. This framework measure for the restoration of riparian buffers may have
scheme is far from identifying all possible interactions among unconsidered positive side-effects on the river, such as the
variables, because anthropogenic and natural systems are extre- filtration of polluted overland and subsurface flows, the protection
mely complex, and can be hardly represented by indicators. of the banks from erosion, the reduction of the growth of the
Moreover, the categorization of indicators is a subjective aquatic macrophytes thanks to canopy shading, the improvement
procedure that has not been codified yet, so the indicators selected of the microclimate of contiguous fields, the creation of new
to represent the environmental variables may differ from other habitats in the land/water ecotones and the creation of greater
methodologies and also the DPSIR framework has demonstrated connectivity in landscapes due to new migration corridors and
biases in considering different perspectives and concerns of the stepping-stones as suggested by Lowrance et al. (1997) and
several stakeholders and in integrating the social and economic Mander et al. (2005b).
aspects (Svarstad et al., 2008). The scenario definition does not consider the effects of global
variables, such as the effects of the global economy and climate
4.2. Problem-solving level change on agricultural land use choices. Only exploratory scenarios
can provide such an evaluation; normative scenarios impose
The analysis has identified that the actual condition is far to be sustainability goals achievement that, in order to be reached,
sustainable if compared with other management scenarios. The require that policy-makers identify compensatory measures to
MCDA results show that the best ranking scenario is ‘1. The match local policy measures, overcoming the higher-scale effects.
creation of artificial basins for water storage’, as it is more cost- In order to improve the selection of the weights, it is necessary
effective compared to the others. Scenario 1.2A.1, which includes to implement a participative decision-making process on river
the conversion of 10% of the fruit cultivated areas into vineyards, basin management with the stakeholders participation. More
combined with the creation of few artificial basins, is ranked accurate solutions and strategies can be identified in order to
second-best, followed by the scenario 1.3 which includes the support the integrated management and planning of the Lamone
creation of artificial basins combined with the enhancement of the river basin, such as the evaluation of the water quality and the
riparian corridors. inclusion of the desertification issue.
It is important to note that the MCDA results have to be
considered as sound scientific based contribute to the public 5. Conclusions
debate about Lamone river basin management strategies and not
as a set of solutions that have to be implemented. This is because Agricultural land use changes have significantly affected the
assumptions and simplifications that have been made within the Lamone river basin, modifying the landscape properties and
analysis can strongly affect the ranking. First of all, the evaluation leading to homogenization, both in the upper and lower part of the
of the scenarios has been performed using the paradigm of the study area. The riparian Natural Habitat was reduced and water
three pillars of sustainability, maximizing the trade-off between scarcity was caused in an area that previously to 1976 had never
environmental, economic and social aspects, through the hypoth- experienced such problems. The multi-criteria decision analysis
esis of the full trade-off between the three pillars; thus, a different results indicate that seven management scenarios are better than
sustainability approach and a different weighting method could the no-action scenario, therefore providing relevant information to
produce different results. The results of the ranking are also the local community as well to decision makers regarding the need
probably biased because the limits of confidence (LC) have not for the implementation of management actions.
been taken into account. Without the LC, it is not possible to This paper presents the coupling of land use change assessment,
conduct a statistical analysis that could define, with known landscape and hydrological analysis and problem-solving methods
probability, whether the considered solution significantly differs and tools, using the DPSIR indicators framework. This research has
from the others. been performed in order to integrate the analytical and operational
The analysis does not take into account several aspects of the approaches and to pursue a sustainable management at the river
proposed scenarios. First of all, the quantification of economic loss basin scale. Even if relevant results on land use change effects and
considers only the loss of income by farmers, due to the loss of management options are provided, further studies have to be
agricultural surfaces, while it does not consider the costs for the carried out in order to identify suitable strategy for the integrated
realization of the scenario, such as the excavation of artificial management of the Lamone river basin.
basins and the establishment of new plantations. This is because
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