Project’s area

The territory where the project was carried out involved the coastal area of Salto di Fondi (in the Latina Province, South of Rome): a very important place for the environment, but at the same time very frail, at the time in danger of geological subsidence and saltiness intrusion, because of the high consumption of underground fresh waters for agriculture.

Beyond the view here above delineated, that points out the problems related to a correct and equilibrate fertilising planning, there was, since a good decade, a progressive and irreversible increasing of saltiness in the underground waters due to sea intrusion. The examination of the situation brought to the conclusion that all the conditions for the creation of serious farming- and environmental-damages were present: the high amount of nutrients and of sodium both in the soils and in the water sources compelled to the requirement of a more rational farming system in the area, inducing more awareness in all the stakeholders implicated into the agriculture chain and into the territorial management. The problem of the saltiness increase and seawater intrusion, linked to the disproportionate underground water consumption, was primarly due to the local habit of utilising in winter the underground “hot” water in order to “warm up” the greenhouses against the frost.