The institutional purposes of the Regional Department of Forest in Siciliy, in charge of the pilot action in the frame of the Project for the Region Sicily are oriented to surveillance, control, defense, protection and development of forestry and mountain territory, soil, natural environment and reserves, thanks also to the activity of the Regional Forestry - Brigade, who carries in the Region through the same functions and purposes of the National Forestry - Brigade in Italy and take part also in the Civil Protection actions.
Department competences include planning, execution and realization  of hydraulic and hydro-forestry installations in mountain and hydrographical basin. Department plans actions and manages allotted funds by  Europe, Italian State or Extraregional  Organization.  It is front line in the war against the main natural disaster damages, in particular against  forest  fires and desertification.

Project's Scientific  Partner: University of Palermo- Agronomic Faculty – ITAF Department

Scientific Partner of Sicilian Region, the  Division of Hydraulic , in Agronomic – Forest Technologies Department  in University of Palermo is National leader Institution in the field of  erosion soil research. It has produced many specific works and publications in particular about geological environment made of clayey and metamorphic substratum.

Activities in the frame of the Project DesertNet 2

The pilot action of Regione Sicilia in the frame of the Project DesertNet 2 aims to improve the knowledge of erosive processes in order to define factors and indexes for the identification of the areas affected by desertification in the Sicilian territory. To reach this goals, partnership with the ITAF Department has been renewed to follow up studies and researches in the experimental area of Sparacia (PA). Processed standards could be used as technical scientific supports for the monitoring and planning of  actions in the areas in danger of desertification to propose a prevention strategy in relation with the different regional competences.
In particular, the pilot action will be developed in four different steps:
1) Regional localization of the areas affected by desertification (1:25.000 scale) relating to erosive process indexes;
2) Localization, inside of the affected areas, of zones that are both potentially in need of action and exposed to fire;
3) Characterization of sample areas on different scales, inside of the areas in need of action or where fire has broken out;
4) Monitoring of the erosive process on different scale (parcels, river basin) in the pilot areas of Sparacia.

Responsible of the Project:
Dirigente Generale delle Foreste  - pro tempore Dott. Agr.Michele Salvatore Lonzi 
 
Technical referent: 
Dott. Giuseppe Villanova tel. 091 7072622, e.mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it