Twenty-four square metres per year for every hectare of green area. That is the soil consumption recorded in 2018 alone. The highest rates are found in cities such as Milan and Rome: the former lost 11 hectares of green areas out of a total of 11.5 hectares of soil consumed, while Rome saw 57 hectares disappear out of 75. The only city bucking the trend is Turin, which reversed course by recovering 7 hectares of land. These are the main findings of the Ispra Snpa 2019 Report on soil consumption in Italy, presented in the Senate last Tuesday.

Looking at the map of the boot, it is immediately apparent how the large urban areas are the worst affected, especially in the north. Central and southern Italy are not immune either, with Emilia Romagna, the entire Adriatic coast, Puglia, Lazio and Campania all impacted. In total, almost half of the country's soil loss over the past year is concentrated in urban areas, 15 per cent in central and semi-central zones, and 32 per cent in peripheral and less densely populated belts. Concreting is advancing relentlessly, above all in areas that are already heavily compromised: the figure is 10 times higher than in less consumed zones.

What soil consumption entails

The definition is provided by the Institute itself for environmental protection: "it is a process associated with the loss of a fundamental, finite and non-renewable environmental resource, caused by the occupation of an originally agricultural, natural or semi-natural surface with an artificial cover." The loss of natural surface leads to land degradation and the loss of ecosystem functions, which "continue at an unsustainable pace", as the report underlines.

The data point to an average of 14 hectares per day, at a rate of 2 square metres per second, approximately 20 football pitches. And with them we lose the capacity to regulate the flow of surface water and groundwater, to protect against and mitigate extreme hydrological events, to control erosion and nutrients, and to regulate water quality. Soil consumption is also growing in protected areas, in areas subject to landscape conservation constraints, and in areas of seismic and hydraulic hazard.

Sergio Costa @SergioCosta_Gen

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I tempi sono maturi per approvare il disegno di legge sul consumo #suolo. Il 79% del nostro #territorio è a forte #rischio idrogeologico.

#AvantiCosì.

@SkyTG24

♥ 534💬 24 18 set 2019 · Apri su X →

More green space, in words alone

But there is more to it than this. With Italy's average temperatures already recording values of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, continuing to sacrifice soil means exponentially increasing the urban heat island effect in concreted areas, particularly during summer periods.
"Soil consumption in cities is also closely linked to rising temperatures: the greater presence of artificial surfaces at the expense of urban green space, in fact, also leads to an increase in the intensity of the heat island phenomenon," Ispra explains. "The difference in summer temperatures between urban and rural areas often reaches values above 2°C in the largest cities."

Beyond the easy rhetoric and the supposed intention of public administrations to increase green areas by planting thousands of trees and other plant species, the data made public in recent days tell exactly the opposite story. We continue to be buried under concrete and asphalt.