IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i2p872-d723575.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evaluation of Ecosystem Services in Mining Basins: An Application in the Piedmont Region (Italy)

Author

Listed:
  • Vanessa Assumma

    (Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning (DIST), Politecnico di Torino, Castello del Valentino, Viale Pier Andrea Mattioli, 39-10125 Torino, Italy)

  • Marta Bottero

    (Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning (DIST), Politecnico di Torino, Castello del Valentino, Viale Pier Andrea Mattioli, 39-10125 Torino, Italy)

  • Caterina Caprioli

    (Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning (DIST), Politecnico di Torino, Castello del Valentino, Viale Pier Andrea Mattioli, 39-10125 Torino, Italy)

  • Giulia Datola

    (Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning (DIST), Politecnico di Torino, Castello del Valentino, Viale Pier Andrea Mattioli, 39-10125 Torino, Italy)

  • Giulio Mondini

    (Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning (DIST), Politecnico di Torino, Castello del Valentino, Viale Pier Andrea Mattioli, 39-10125 Torino, Italy)

Abstract

Mining activities impact on the territorial system in various ways, affecting its environmental and socio-economic components. Specific evaluation tools can support decision-making processes in the context of the sustainable planning and management of mining activities. Within the evaluation procedures of mining activities, a growing interest in the analysis of Ecosystem Services (ES) is emerging. ES refer to the benefits that the natural system delivers to society, linking the health of ecosystems and human well-being. Starting from a real-world case related to the adoption of the Regional Plan of Mining Activities (PRAE) of the Piedmont region (Northern Italy), the paper aims to explore the ES valuation by considering three different mining quarries. The state of the art of the basins is compared with alternative planning scenarios from the point of view of the ES produced. The valuation is developed through GIS and the Simulsoil software, detecting the biophysical benefits produced and estimating their economic performance. The simulation results can be used to support the formulation of planning strategies, estimating the trade-offs in terms of competitive land-use values. The study also demonstrates that the integration of ES into Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) can produce a comprehensive impact assessment of a mining project, guaranteeing the protection and valorisation of the environmental system.

Suggested Citation

  • Vanessa Assumma & Marta Bottero & Caterina Caprioli & Giulia Datola & Giulio Mondini, 2022. "Evaluation of Ecosystem Services in Mining Basins: An Application in the Piedmont Region (Italy)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-25, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:2:p:872-:d:723575
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/2/872/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/2/872/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jinxin Zhang & Yunmeng Cao & Fanshu Ding & Jing Wu & I-Shin Chang, 2022. "Regional Ecological Security Pattern Construction Based on Ecological Barriers: A Case Study of the Bohai Bay Terrestrial Ecosystem," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-23, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:2:p:872-:d:723575. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.