Abstract
The Liguria Region in Northern Italy is characterized by a wide geological and geomorphological variety, encompassing an important and valuable geoheritage. The Ligurian regional law (L.R. 39/2009) protects and enhances geodiversity and geosites, establishing the Regional Inventory of Geosites; however, an approved official inventory is still lacking. In this work, a first reasoned inventory of 120 geosites is proposed for the Liguria Region on the basis of field surveys and literature review. A quantitative assessment of the value and the degradation risk of geosites has been carried out: the value assessment takes into account scientific, additional and potential-for-use values; the degradation risk assessment considers geosites’ fragility and vulnerability. The results, providing knowledge on the Ligurian geoheritage, can serve as the basis for the Regional Inventory of Geosites and can be useful tools for the implementation of any regional geoconservation strategy or environmental management plan.
Highlights
Geodiversity, geoheritage and geosite studies have seen growing relevance in recent times, e.g., [1,2,3,4] and reference therein
120 sites10were of 19 selected to form the inventory of geosites (Table S1A, Figure 5a) and the data collected were stored in a GIS database
It is no coincidence that Liguria hosts one of the most active UNESCO Global Geoparks (Beigua Geopark), and the main regional protected areas have Earth Science features as the main point of interest: ophiolites in the case of the Beigua and Aveto natural parks; conglomerates and coastal landforms in the Portofino park; flysch and limestones the diagrams concerning geosites of geomorphological interest assume rather variable forms; to a lesser extent, the variability is present in geosites with primary geological s.l. structural and engineering geology interests
Summary
Geodiversity, geoheritage and geosite studies have seen growing relevance in recent times, e.g., [1,2,3,4] and reference therein. The prevalent approach defines geosites as in situ geodiversity elements that have a certain value due to human perception and exploitation. According to this broad definition, the attributes that may confer value to geosite are scientific, scenic, socioeconomic, cultural, educational, the potential-for-use value. A more restrictive definition has been proposed by Brilha [8], according to which geosites are in situ elements with high scientific value. Worthy of note is the scientific program and initiatives approved and implemented by UNESCO since the early 1970s. Many recent geoheritage studies focus on areas to present as aspiring geoparks or to increase knowledge on the geoheritage of existing ones [40,41,42,43,44]
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