“VALLI DA PESCA” AND ECOSYSTEM SERVICES ASSESSMENT: A NEW PERSPECTIVE

The evaluation of ecosystem services (ES) has been proven to be an effective method to highlight natural capital and its contribution to human well-being. Notwithstanding the studies about the ES provided by transitional water environments are numerous, data about the assessment of ES in the Venice lagoon are scarce and mainly focused on just one single ecosystem service at once. Recently, as part of the project Venezia 2021, a new perspective has started to be developed, which will quantify both the potential capacity of the lagoon to provide ES and the actual flow of them from the environment towards the human society. The present analysis aims to apply the same perspective to evaluate ES provided by the “valli da pesca”, which are enclosed fishing ponds typically located in the Venice lagoon. These environments, albeit very similar to the natural lagoon ecosystem, could be considered “anthropic environments”: they were created centuries ago by local populations and are completely depending on human actions, both in terms of physical maintenance and functioning (e.g. regulation of fresh and saltwater flows). All this imitates the functioning of the real lagoon ecosystem, aimed to maximize the exploitation of fish and birds. Fishing and hunting activities represent two of the main ES provided by transitional water environments and here we indagate how their maximization could influence other ES, either the regulating and cultural ones. Furthermore, thanks to the multiple ES approach, a preliminary analysis to individuate the link between the structure of the environment, its ecological status, and its capability to provide ES will be suggested.