Intensive agricultural use of soils and groundwater vulnerability of wetlands located in the south-east part of Sicily

The wetlands are important earth’s ecosystems that play a key role for the maintenance of natural balances. In the south-east part of the Sicily, the regional government has located some areas that would became protected. Unfortunately, these areas are interested by an anthropic high pressure created by an intensive agriculture use of soils that wastes the natural balance. Through an aimed analysis of the soil use and water resources in to the wetlands it was possible to evaluate dangerous effects of chemical products used in greenhouses, considering transit time and attenuation factors through the soil and the unsaturated zones. The results has shown concentration values of alo-genated pesticides reaching water table over 34,000 times more than low limits for wastewater. The dangerous effect for the environment in general and for the lacustrian one in particular, proves the necessity to reduce drastically the human activities in these zones to avoid troubles to the fauna (particularly avifauna) and to avoid destruction of natural vegetation which roots strengthen the sand, allowing the permanence of coastal dunes. An urban intermunicipal and interprovincial planning is claimed to avoid the growing urban contradictions in high naturalistic interest zones to create some ecological networks to interconnect the three areas of the new natural reserves called ‘South-eastern Sicily wetlands’.