Environmental rehabilitation linking natural and industrial heritage: a Master Plan for dismissed quarry areas in the Emilia Apennines (Italy)

Over the past decades, quarrying activities have produced a vast array of physical and environmental impacts worldwide. In the past 20 years, there has been a growing need to address the issue of rehabilitation and requalification of quarry areas that, to be effective, should be strictly linked to local territorial resources and context, as shown by different types of rehabilitation schemes implemented in different parts of the world. This paper focuses on the rehabilitation of a recently dismissed quarry area in the Rio della Rocca valley (Emilia Apennines, northern Italy), near the ceramic tile district of Sassuolo, which is considered the largest in the world. During the past 50 years, quarrying activity has deeply modified the pristine landscape of this valley, which, however, still holds biotic and abiotic features of great natural interest and scientific value. The methodological approach and actions that led to an environmental rehabilitation scheme, based on the combined appraisal of geological, biological and industrial heritage within a Master Plan, are presented. Territorial resources, restrictions on development, geological hazards, as well as inputs from the local community at different stages were taken into account in defining the Master Plan.