L’informazione fitosociologica nella valutazione dello stato dell’ambiente: l'esempio dell'Umbria.

The starting point for the present contribution was the second Environmental Report for Umbria (Relazione sullo Stato dell’Ambiente, R.S.A.), as concerns the floristic-vegetational field. The work has been commissioned by the Umbria Regional Office, the Environment Regional Agency (A.R.P.A.) and the Research Umbria Agency (A.U.R.). Its aim was to provide a suitable instrument for the environmental knowledge of the territory and of the actual trends in Umbria. The project was a part of an interdisciplinary analysis, which considered the territory from different points of view: economical, social, productive. In broad terms, the Umbria R.S.A. intended to achieve the following results (I.R.R.E.S., 2000): - to provide a survey of the different environmental fields; - to supply an up-to-date outline of the knowledge level, with the aim to direct and improve the planning processes which can determine the policy for environmental protection and development; - to implement the interdisciplinary and coordinating character of the sectorial policy; - to single out the weak points which negatively characterize the regional territory; - to test the effectiveness of the started initiatives, through the subsequent editions of the Report; - to set up a data bank available for the planner, the controller, the researcher. Since the starting steps, it was evident that the official indicator set proposed by A.N.P.A., mainly based on the habitats of Community importance pointed out in the 92/43/CEE Directive, was sometime unsuited or unappliable and in general quite deficient as concerns flora and vegetation. A specific model was lacking, for selecting the suitable indicators; this situation excluded the chance to make use of phytosociological data With the aim to use the available phytosociological data, some already existing indicators have been adopted, mainly among those proposed by ANPA; some of those proposed in the Province Coordination Territorial Plan (P.T.C.P.) of Terni have been modified and used; some new one have been singled out, starting from the most recent proposals. As concerns the data gathering, three levels have been analysed: flora; vegetation, grounded on the phytosociological method; and landscape, founded on the vegetation series and ‘potential vegetation’ concepts. The available data are represented by the sectorial publications (edited until 2002) concerning the floristic-vegetational themes, including the cartographic productions, and by the first results of the researches carried out by Prof. Venanzoni and his group at the University of Perugia. The whole work was founded on bibliographic sources. This is an essential R.S.A. feature, as it is not a research instrument but a knowledge vehicle, from the scientific world to the management, administration and provisions field. The scientific researchers, by themselves, provide the cognitive supply, which is generally not so directly usable by the wide public; the R.S.A. translates the language and supplies the keys, putting in contact different ways of reading the same reality.