The soil. A fundamental resource for the existence of man, difficult to restore in case of degradation and above all not renewable and therefore destined not to increase over time. In fact, the data for 2020 show a high trend in land consumption that last year reached a + 56,7 km2 of new artificial surfaces and which correspond to almost 2 square meters of land lost every second. The most surprising thing is that the urbanization process and land use have no direct link with it demographic development of the population. Artificial surfaces in fact grew last year despite the slowdown in activities in 2020 due to a pandemic and despite the demographic decline of our national population.
Today at the per capita level we have reached 359 m2 of land lost per inhabitant, compared to 349 m2 / inhabitant 5 years ago, while artificial land cover nationwide settled at 7,11%; a very high value especially when compared with the EU average of 4,2%. Loss of soil that does not spare any geographical area of our peninsula, but which in any case is more critical in urban and peri-urban areas and above all to the detriment of agricultural areas and herbaceous vegetation. That is it makes free soil residues increasingly fragmented and isolated around urbanized areas, which in turn become more vulnerable to future urbanization as they are made more accessible. The data thus confirm one densification of urban areas, due to this continuous loss of internal and neighboring natural surfaces, which makes our cities increasingly compromised and unsustainable as they are less efficient in terms of water regulation and mitigation of the local climate.
Land consumption was also found particularly pronounced in some regions in particular of the northern plain such as Lombardy and Veneto, but it was also high in the whole coast (in particular the Adriatic coast, the Sicilian coast and in southern Puglia) and in all the main metropolitan cities. Not even the areas restricted to landscape protection, with a high hydraulic and landslide hazard, and even the areas with a high seismic hazard, were spared. All of these delicate areas have in fact suffered significant soil losses, in the order of over 4 thousand hectares compared to the last year. The danger of all this must also be clearly read in the loss of natural and agricultural surfaces and above all as a more complex loss of ecosystem services that are supplied by the soil and ranging from agricultural production to carbon storage, from erosion control to microclimate regulation, from particulate and ozone removal to regulation and regulation of the water cycle, to which is added the more complex value in terms of the quality of our environment.
An economic damage that has also been quantified in monetary terms and is estimated at around 3 billion euros every year at national level. Having said all this, we must ask ourselves what the future scenarios may be. They will certainly be pessimistic if we continue with this trend and if we continue not to listen to these reports. With these speeds we are also far from reaching the zero land use expected at the end of the decade by the2030 Agenda, but above all the costs we would have to incur to compensate for the loss of all missed ecosystem services would reach a total value in the period between 2021 and 2030 of almost 100 billion euros. It goes without saying that something must be done and above all immediately.
First of all, a national legislation on land use would be needed to regulate its use and intervene on the restoration of degraded surfaces (a bill has been presented on this subject, but has still been under discussion in the Senate for some years). At the same time a greater awareness of all public opinion would also be needed on the issue of soil protection as, in environmental issues, she is too often distracted and interested in other more emotionally engaging issues and of which unfortunately soil consumption does not seem to be a part (Source: Hunting Federation).