Biosystems engineering techniques for habitat restoration in protected areas.

A rural landscape is the final result of the mutual interaction among several natural ecosystems with the artificial intervention of the Man, who transformed the rural land, joining the agricultural production needed for human life with the control and care of extra-urban territory. A rural landscape includes the physical elements of landforms, the hydrological components and transitory elements such as lighting and weather conditions, strictly connected with living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, flora and fauna, as well as their possible spontaneous way of organization into different ecosystems. Human elements include different forms of land use, buildings and other rural constructions, who play a central role in determining the formal and substantial characteristics of the extraurban landscape, influencing the agricultural environment and the visual perception of its landscape. Combining both their physical origins and the cultural overlay of human presence, often created over millennia, a rural landscape reflects a living synthesis of people and place that is vital to local and national identity, helping to define the self-image of the people who inhabit it, and a sense of place that differentiates one region from others. The diffusion of intensive agriculture, together with the expansion of urban areas and consequent enlargement of the anthropic activities onto the rural landscape, determined a general loss in wetland areas all over the World. Because of the high rate of wetland loss over the last century, it has become routine to mitigate these losses by designing and executing specific targeted technical interventions, i.e., building or restoring existing constructions able to create local micro-environment favourable for some amphibian and reptile species, restoring existing wetlands or constructing new artificial ones, etc. Several studies have demonstrated anyway the difficulty of replicating natural habitats when attempting to create suitable habitat for these species. In the present paper, the final results of an international Project – named: “ARUPA”, financed by the EU LIFE+ Programme – aimed to guarantee the survival and increase in the population of some species of amphibians and reptiles in a protected area, are reported. The actions of the project were taken in the natural protected area surrounding the City of Matera (one of the UNESCO site of the Basilicata Region – Southern Italy) that is an EU Community Interest Site and Special Protection Zone as well. During this Project, some biosystems engineering techniques were employed, through specific constructions for the conservation and re-inclusion of some endangered species. Among these constructions, some dry-stone walls were built or restored, as well as some artificial ponds were realized. Their engineering design and construction aspects, which would contribute to the preservation of the local rural landscape, are here reported and discussed.