Revegetation assessment on different areas of a methane pipeline in Tuscany

Abstract

Revegetation assessment on different areas of methane pipeline in Tuscany. Degraded areas due to extra-agricultural activity (such as quarries, dumps, ski runs, methane tracks, etc.) or to natural events (such as landslides) are present in a wide part of Italian territory and for this reason is extremely necessary an effective restoration in order to reduce erosion risks and to permit their better integration in the surrounding landscape. Revegetation is usually performed using commercial mixtures constituted by species with a forage aptitude. The aim of this work was to analyse the evolution of revegetation performed on different areas of methane pipeline in Tuscany (central Italy), both in Mediterranean environments and in mountain areas. Knowledge of mixture used during revegetation and time of intervention allowed, on one hand, to discriminate species introduced by revegetation from those coming out from native recolonisation of tracks, on the other hand, to know the age of canopies at time of botanical analysis. The following variables were assessed on the studied herbaceous resources: ground cover, floristic composition, biodiversity, level of recolonization by native species, similarity with natural areas. Data collection permitted the evaluation of efficiency of studied revegetation, the awareness of the role played by sown and native species, the estimation of the level of native species in order to integrate the restoration with the environment and the analysis of most important parameters that affect vegetal evolution in these peculiar settings.

Keywords

• Biodiversity
• Ground Cover
• Vegetal Evolution
• Environmental Impact
• Native Species