Page 2 - Barrocu_2003

ITALIA
INRODUCTION
The Italian peninsula juts southwards deep
into the Mediterranean Sea in the shape of a boot
more than 1300 km long and from 150 to 600 km
wide. It has 7456 km of coastline, extremely long
in proportion to the total land area (301,302 km2).
The coasts of Italy’s two largest islands Sicily
(25,707 km2) and Sardinia (24,090 km2) are
1500.1 km (20.1%) and 1849.2 km, (24.8%) long
respectively.
The country’s main topographical features
are the Alpine arc, that forms the natural northern
frontier with central Europe, and the Apennines
chain forming the backbone of the peninsula.
There is a sharp contrast between the unindented,
lowlying lagoonal coasts, bordering the Po plain
in the northern Adriatic, and the high jagged
coasts to the east of the peninsula fringing the
spurs of the Apennines or the short and narrow
sandy strips at the foot of coastal hills. The only
coastal plains on the west coast are those in Tus-
cany, Latium and Campania that stretch out into
the Tyrrhenian Sea .
In Sicily high and rocky coasts prevail over
sandy shores, and the coasts of Sardinia, apart
from the small deltaic coastal plains with their
numerous lagoons and ponds, are steep and
jagged, especially in the NE of the island. The
inland areas of the two islands are topographical-
ly similar to southern Italy, with rugged moun-
tains in the interior. The other large islands off the because of mismanagement of water resources
west coast of mainland Italy are, proceeding
southwards the Tuscan Archipelago, the Pontine
Islands, Ischia, and Capri. The Lipari Islands,
Ustica and the Egadi Islands lie off the coasts of
Sicily; and Pantelleria and the Pelagie Islands
between Sicily and Tunisia. There are a few
islands dotted around Sardinia and off the Ionian
and Adriatic coasts.
Italy’s population, estimated in 2000 at
nearly 57.8 million, is very unequally distributed,
ranging from 37 inhabitants per km2 in the Alpine
region of Val d’Aosta to 425 persons per km2 in
the southern region of Campania. The metropoli-
tan areas around of Naples and Milan have over
208
2640 and 1900 inhabitants per km2 respectively,
compared to an average population density for the
whole country of 192 km2. Italy’s population den-
sity is one of the highest in Europe, but its distri-
bution is highly uneven because of its physical
features and differential urbanization. At present,
more than the 67% of the population lives in
towns with more than 10,000 inhabitants, and
about 53% in towns with more than 20,000 inhab-
itants. The 20th century saw the beginning of a
mass exodus towards coastal areas especially
after the 2nd world war during the period 1951-91,
reaching a peak between 1951-71.
On the one hand irrigated agriculture and
stock farming expanded increasingly in the
coastal plains, while on the other extensive areas
underwent rapid and sometimes haphazard urban-
ization with infrastructures and residential hous-
ing as well as tourist resorts and the settlement of
new industries. in proportion to total inhabitants.
The proportion of the total population living in
coastal areas attains 45% in southern Italy, 39.5%
in central Italy and 11.5 in the North. The impact
is dramatic if one considers the increasing num-
ber of tourists that swell the resident population,
especially in the summer. The development of
new and expansion of existing urban areas has led
to the loss of prime agricultural land and often
water resources allocation problems, leading to
conflicts among land and water users. Generally,
the natural balance between surface water,
groundwater and seawater has been upset, and
coastal aquifers have become affected by saltwa-
ter encroachment resulting in soil salinization.
GEOLOGICAL CONTEXT
The main aquifer formations of Italy are
shown in the hydrogelogical sketch-map of figure 1.
The northeastern part of the peninsula, at
the borders with Slovenia and Croatia, consists
of the karst limestone aquifer system, with sink-
holes and underground rivers some tens of kilo-
meters long, of which the best known is the