Amici della Terra Italia,Italian partner of MED4EBM, concluded in November 2022 a system cause-effect analysis workshop of the Corigliano Gulf area facilitated by the Project’s international Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) expert Francesca Pella.

The workshop was conducted remotely and focused on bathing water quality management and the relationship between the agricultural sector and tourism which appear to be the priorities, both in terms of risk factors and current impact on the ecosystem. In particular, the area on which the need for an intervention protocol emerged most clearly was that of bathing water management, given the various environmental pressures that arises and the tourism activities in the Gulf area.

To compose the final diagram, the working team used a format that highlights the interactions between the various components and their respective quantitative analyses, with the aim of identifying the main pressure relationships and consequently identifying possible governance proposals to be discussed with local stakeholders in the next phase of work. In the specific case of bathing waters and the agricultural sector in the Gulf of Corigliano, in addition to systematizing the relationships and reviewing the data quantitatively, a qualitative analysis was also carried out on the type of data that could be found. Database research proved to be very useful in gaining insight into the functioning of data collection and systematization, which is often lacking for the survey area.

With regard to the agricultural sector, work was carried out concerning pollutants in the inland hydrographic reticulum. Phosphorus was found to be the most impactful on agricultural soils. In order to assess the possible correspondence between the amount of fertilizer used and the condition of the soils, a survey was also conducted on inland watersheds based on available past monitoring.