The loss of coastal habitats is a widespread problem in Europe. To
protect the intertidal salt marshes of the lagoon of Venice from the
erosion due to natural and human causes which is diffusely and intensely
impacting them, the European Commission has funded the demonstrative
project LIFE VIMINE. LIFE VIMINE aims to protect the most interior,
hard-to-access salt marshes in the northern lagoon of Venice through an
integrated approach, whose core is the prevention of erosion through
numerous, small but spatially-diffuse soil-bioengineering protections
works, mainly placed through semi-manual labour and with low impact on
the environment and the landscape. The effectiveness of protection works
in the long term is ensured through routine, temporally-continuous and
spatially-diffuse actions of monitoring and maintenance. This method
contrasts the common approach to managing hydraulic risk and erosion in
Italy which is based on large, one-off and irreversible protection
actions. The sustainability of the LIFE VIMINE approach is ensured by
the participatory involvement of stakeholders and the recognition that
protecting salt marshes means defending the benefits they provide to
society through their ecological functions, as well as protecting the
jobs linked to the existence or conservation of this habitat