Stratigraphic architecture and anthropic impacts on subsoil to assess the intrinsic potential vulnerability of groundwater: The northeastern Campania Plain case study, southern Italy

This study attempts to assess the aquifer vulnerability in the northeastern sector of the Campania Plain (southern Italy). The area is a highly populated region with anthropic impacts caused by rapid urban growth, quarrying, agricultural and industrial activities and uncontrolled waste storage. The main geologic feature of this plain is the alternation of alluvial/transitional and volcaniclastic deposits of Late Pleistocene-Holocene age. The study was performed integrating different sets of geologic and environmental data to restore the stratigraphic architecture and to assess anthropic impacts on subsoil. The reconstruction of stratigraphic subsurface architecture was based on remarkable geodatabase, concerning well log stratigraphies. Specific insights have been delineated on the volcaniclastic lithofacies heteropies across the entire area of study to highlight the differences in lithification degree and permeability. The contribution of pedogenesis on the reconstruction of the stratigraphic setting was also considered for the relative implications on groundwater quality concerns, as paleosols are usually regarded as aquitards. All of this information has been managed into a GIS project to produce a detailed 3D geological reconstruction, integrated with hydrogeological information to provide a model of the aquifer under study, highlighting sites of greater vulnerability to pollution. The anthropic impacts on subsoil were assessed by evaluating land-uses and overlaying the ANHI (Agricultural Nitrate Hazard Index) Map. The integration of the above datasets has allowed to check the reliability of the previsional empirical model with respect to the hydrostratigraphic model based on a thorough stratigraphic model and to verify the real potential of contamination. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Late-Holocene to recent evolution of Lake Patria, South Italy: An example of a coastal lagoon within a Mediterranean delta system

Lake Patria is a mesoaline coastal lagoon that develops along the coastal zone of the Volturno River plain (Campania, South Italy). The lagoon is a saline to brackish water body, ca. 2.0 long, and 1.5 km wide, with an average water depth of 1.5 m, reaching a maximum of ca. 3.0 m. The freshwater input into the lagoon is provided by a series of fresh to brackish water channels and small springs, landwards, while a permanent connection with the Tyrrhenian Sea is provided by a channel, 1.5 km long and a few meters wide. Drilling data from 12 boreholes acquired in the study area indicate that Lake Patria is a man-modified remnant of a larger lagoonal area that developed during the last millennia along the Campania coastal zone within an alluvial delta system at the mouth of the paleo-Volturno River. Sedimentological and stratigraphic analyses of drill cores suggest that the lower Volturno delta plain developed in the last 6000 years. Depositional conditions during this period were dominated by flood-plain and alluvial plain settings, with transition to coastal bars and associated back-barrier coastal lagoons. Lake Patria started evolving at an early stage of the Volturno delta plain formation as a consequence of foreshore deposits damming-up by littoral drift. The first marine layers display a radiocarbon age of ca. 4.8 ka BP and overlie a substrate represented by volcaniclastic deposits, originated by the Campi Flegrei, and associated paleosols. The lagoonal succession cored at Lake Patria may be interpreted as the result of a dynamic equilibrium between marine influence and riverine input into the lagoonal system through time, and has been tentatively correlated with the major climatic changes that occurred during Mid–Late Holocene. Insights into the recentmost evolution of the coastal lagoon of Lake Patria are provided by the GIS-based analysis of the physiographic changes of the region conducted on a series of historical topographic maps dating back to the early XVII century. Particularly, the superposition of historical cartography reveals the secular trends in the change of coastal environments and the role of human modification of natural habitats over the last 400 years