Breadcrumb > Progetti
Environmental Accounting
The MPA has implemented a project related to environmental accounting carried out in collaboration with CoNISMa and University of Palermo DISTEM.
The project, funded by the Ministry for the Environment, aims to identify the environmental heritage that is the natural capital from which all goods and services beneficial to human being originate. Environmental information, elaborated through the economic and social data of the territory, provides the ecological and economic value of the area.
The project was launched in 2014, with the support of the researchers of DiSTEM of the University of Palermo, to realize the ZERO phase: the cognitive and preparatory phase, during which, by means of analysis and field observations, the territory was marked from a naturalistic and environmental point of view, by illustrating habitats and species present in terms of biodiversity, extension and biomass.
Subsequently, with the support of CoNISMa, the phases from ONE to THREE followed, during which:
- naturalistic surveys were deepened, in order to know in detail, by visual census and mapping studies, the biocenotic communities, and to elaborate the obtained data with a view to attributing an ecological and economic value to these communities (phase ONE);
- the functions characterizing the environmental heritage and the ecosystem services deriving from it were identified, which is fundamental in order to detect the correct relationships between the ecosystem and the anthropic system (phase TWO)
- the uses and impacts on the area resulting from human activities were highlighted, and the direct environmental impacts affecting the MPA in terms of use of the resources and degradation as well as the indirect impacts outside the MPA were assessed (Phase THREE).