Author(s): Chiara Arrighi; Matteo Masi; Francesco Piragino; Fabio Castelli
Linked Author(s): Chiara Arrighi, Fabio Castelli
Keywords: No Keywords
Abstract: 1. Introduction Adaptation measures are key to help communities to face natural hazards, including drought and water scarcity, in the face of climate change. As part of a research project involving the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Florence and the Consorzio di Bonifica 3 Medio Valdarno, we examine how the construction of small reservoirs in a rural area with multiple and competing water uses can help increase the resilience of the local water infrastructure. A reservoir is an engineering work that can occupy a portion of territory originally dedicated to other uses (e. g., agricultural areas, woodlands) or have an impact on territorial elements, for example on areas with protected landscape or existing infrastructures. On the other hand, a reservoir can offer several benefits both from a water resource perspective (availability of summer water reserve, flood mitigation, downstream groundwater recharge) and from a socio-ecological perspective (maintenance of ecological flows in the summer period, energy production, and recreational purpose). The construction of a new reservoir must consider these and many other criteria, often incommensurable, to qualify the sustainability of the planned measure. The aim of the work is to complement the GIS morphological analysis with a participatory approach to select and weight the siting characteristics in a Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) analysis for the identification of the most appropriate reservoir siting. The working hypothesis is that no prior siting study exist in the given area of interest, while in-depth site analysis prior to actual project implementation needs to be focused on a limited number of optimal sites.
Year: 2024