Evaluating Natural Self-Sanitation Capability of Arid Creeks in Puglia Region (South-East Italy)

Abstract

Wetland hydrologic and water-quality functions are the roles that wetlands play in modifying or controlling the quantity or quality of water moving through a wetland. Wetland plants remove nutrients, trace metals, and other compounds from the soil water and incorporate them into the plant tissue which may later be recycled in the wetland through decomposition, stored as peat, or transported from the wetland as a particular matter.
Wetlands have a very effective role for pollutant removal, for flood control, for biodiversity increase and they offer aesthetic value and wildlife habitat. An understanding of wetland functions and the underlying chemical, physical, and biological processes supporting these functions facilitates the management and protection of wetlands and their associated basins. Each wetland is unique but those with similar hydrologic settings generally perform similar functions.
This paper proposes a method to assess those areas which are suitable to develop inlet wetland of a creek (Lama S. Giorgio) typical of a semi-arid climate. The method consists of the analysis of the creek channel morphology by the use of GIS and a detailed digital soil model. It allows to identify a fundamental landscape functionality such as water self-sanitation capacity.