Val Tidone is the Italian Actionlab of WaterProtect (https://water-protect.eu/). The catchment is situated in the north-west of Italy in the Emilia Romagna region.

The landscape of Val Tidone is characterised by an alternation of vineyards, woods and typical villages. Val Tidone Valley covers about 4000 hectares of vineyards, whose height ranges between 100 and 400 meters above sea level.  The surface and ground water are used in the agricultural and zootechnical sectors.

There are 455 grape producers in the valley and most of them are members of the two social wineries, “Val Tidone” and “Vicobarone”.

Monitoring results from the regional authority and WaterProtect partner ARPAE-ER revealed a non-adequate quality of the ground water mainly due to the presence of plant protection products (PPP) and nutrients. Agriculture is the principal contributor to pollution from PPPs and nutrients even if the vineyards contribution to the general contamination is not well defined. Until now the impact of the grape cultivation on pesticides and nitrates groundwater contamination was never investigated. Therefore during the three years of the WaterProtect project the ground water will be monitored and historical data will be collected in order to determinate the possible contribution of grape cultivation on water contamination by pesticides and nitrates.

The WaterProtect Actionlab leader in Italy and their partners are evaluationg  all the available best management practices (BMP) and the most relevant for the vineyard.

Local Partners and Stakeholders : https://water-protect.eu/7-action-labs/italy-val-tidone/val-tidone-local...