Volunteering, bottom-up participation, sense of belonging to the territories and orientation towards sustinable development are the keywords of our project.
With our project, "Operation Rivers: exploring to take care" we wanted to integrate actions based on civic volunteering and experiences of citizen science through activism and the sense of care for the most important natural rivers of the region of Veneto, involved in the project: Adige, Po, Bacchiglione, Brenta, Sile, Piave and Livenza.
Regional
Italy
The region involved is the Region of Veneto, located in the northeastern part of Italy.
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
2023-01-14
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Legambiente Veneto Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Giulia Last name of representative: Bacchiega Gender: Female Nationality: Italy Function: Coordinator Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via Androna 22 Town: Fratta Polesine (RO) Postal code: 45025 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 347 851 0948 E-mail:g.bacchiega@legambienteveneto.it Website:https://www.legambienteveneto.it/
In our opinion, coming back to act in our lands and communities, in this historical period where inequalities, poverty and vulnerabilities (especially considering the social impacts of the pandemic) was meant to bring a concrete, bottom-up support to the most fragile areas, both from a social and environmental point of view.
Operation Rivers was designed and planned as a project in two editions that took place in 2021 and 2022.
We based our work on activities of promotion and development of the culture of volunteerism focused on science-based environmentalism, with the objective of activate and promote bottom-up processes, carried out by local communities, of “taking care” of natural environments.
Through a recruiting campaign (especially directed at the members of our association and volunteers) we built a team of young experts who had the responsibility to develop the main activities of the project.
We provided a learning path to further explore the topics of science-based environmentalism, sustainable development, technical-scientific competences that were necessary for the monitoring phase.
After the learning path, we used the competences of the “Operation Rivers Team” to plan a biological and morphological monitoring of the some rivers: the monitoring process, carried out by filling in a detailed table after the collection of some samples, also included considerations on the presence of waste and industrial establishments in the areas.
The monitoring phase was followed by a campaign, held in the most representative places of the rivers involved and finalized at sharing and disseminating the results with each local community.
The achievement of the objectives took place by putting natural rivers at the center. They have a fundamental role for the well-functioning of natural and artificial ecosystems and, more and more often, they are threatened by biochemical pollution, littering and the effects of climate change.
Citizen science
Volunteering
Participation
Sense of belonging
Education
The spread of an education based on sustainable development is one of the most important inspirations for our project. In particular, our learning methods are grounded in the promotion of sustainable development, human rights, gender equality, pacifism and nonviolence, global citizenship, the enhancement of cultural diversity.
The project aims at encouraging regional and local public administrators to take into account the need to put in the first place the ecological conditions of the rivers, also considering the importance of adopting provisions that are oriented towards the protection of natural ecosystems.
The in-depth learning events, held in 2021 (through online webinars) and directed at the volunteers of the “Operation Rivers Team”, had at their core precise topics: science-based environmentalism, sustainable development and technical-scientific competences that have been later applied in the monitoring campaign of the rivers.
These learning activities have been handled by ARPAV, the Regional Agency for the Prevention and Protection of the Environment of the Veneto region, the Po River Basin Authority (AdbPo) and the Scientific Board of Legambiente.
Our project conceives direct and indirect beneficiaries.
The direct beneficiaries were, first of all, the volunteers participating to the Operation Rivers Team. They received two training courses on specific topics covering their relationship with the environment and, in particular, background of the rivers involved in the project.
The volunteers could learn the technical and scientific approaches, shared by ARPAV, the Regional Agency for the Prevention and Protection of the Environment of the Veneto region, to evaluate the state of health of the rivers, how to organize a sampling campaign and to use the needed instrumentation.
Adopting a “learning by doing” approach, the volunteers could learn how to analyze some chemical, physical and microbiological parameters that are easily detectable but have a deep influence on the state of health of the rivers.
As regards the cultural benefits, the volunteers could learn the historical background of the rivers and the lands surrounding them, they could share this knowledge with their fellow citizens.
The indirect beneficiaries of our project, the people belonging to the communities engaged in the project, could attend the press conferences and the events of the Operation Rivers campaign to further know their lands and be active part of their communities.
One of the general objectives of our project is to give a contribution to the quality of education and learning opportunities to make them more inclusive and fair, giving the opportunity to young and/or vulnerable people to discover a science-based approach to environmentalism and volunteering.
We embraced the objective of reducing inequalities by promoting the culture of volunteerism and by strengthening the social ties in urban and extra urban areas, especially the most vulnerable and disadvantaged areas of our region.
The inclusiveness of the project is grounded in the need for the development of actions involving the communities, actions for social cohesion that have the objective of build significant relationships and favor the participation of families to the daily life of their neighborhood.
We also considered the right to health and well-being as key concepts to spread the importance of the right to a safe environment.
The project aimed at raising the awareness of citizens, especially young and/or vulnerable people, on the effects of climate change and the correlation between the state of wealth of their river and the well-being of the community as a whole.
The campaign (involving the sampling of the rivers and the analysis of the parameters) was conceived as the basis for a network of collaboration between citizens, public institutions, nonprofit and for-profit entities, like sustainable and innovative tourism activities, biological agricultural activities and other activities that have as their objective the promotion of a sustainable circular economy.
In particular, the service SOS Rivers was meant to provide a useful tool for citizens and public institutions to further know vulnerable areas and the risks to which they are exposed.
The citizens involved in the project, first of all the volunteers, can strengthen their connection with the lands covered by the monitoring and reporting of Operation Rivers, becoming change-makers but also guardians of the environment.
Citizens have an active role in participating to the monitoring phase, reporting information on episodes of illegal dumping and poor waste management, knowing the added value of citizen science and volunteering as taking care of their communities and their environment.
The engagement of stakeholders have been particularly important: the Region of Veneto financially supported the project giving a substantial contribution.
ARPAV, the Regional Agency for the Prevention and Protection of the Environment of the Veneto region, gave us a technical support for the learning processes and the interpretation of data.
The “SOS Rivers” service, adopted with the objective of collecting the reports on polluted areas, morphological variations, critical situations involving the rivers, was structured and projected with the prominent role of the stakeholders.
There have been meetings with partners and stakeholders to improve the activities of the project. In particular, in the start-up phase of the project, there have been 3 meetings with partners and stakeholders to strengthen the network of the project, also fostering the cooperation between the team of the project, composed of 10 members, and new partners that were active at local level.
The municipality of Gaiba was an important partner of our project: it was involved in the closing event of the 2022 campaign (Big Jump), an important event organized to raise the attention on the drought that affected the Po river (there is a picture of it, attached to the application).
The Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Pedagogy and Applied Psychology of the University of Padua analyzed the social impacts of the actions involving the building of strong communities.
The project integrated actions of proximity volunteering and actions based on the principle of citizen science, by which citizens could be activated with the purpose of taking care of the lands surrounding each river: Adige, Po, Bacchiglione Brenta, Sile, Piave, Livenza.
The actions of citizen science have been coordinated by the members of the “Operation Rivers Team”, with the objective of engaging, in particular, young people and vulnerable people.
Under the Operation Rivers project, we organized days dedicated to citizen science and active citizenship initiatives: waste collection activities, explorations and observations on the morphology and the biodiversity concerning the river, educational meetings based on the reports made by the citizens.
The sampling and analysis of the rivers was based on the measurement/observation of six chemical, physical and microbiological parameters that required a proper scientific knowledge and training.
The sampling phase was conducted by the Operation Rivers Team of volunteers, who received a short training by the technicians of ARPAV, the Regional Agency for the Prevention and Protection of the Environment of the Veneto region. The parameters are easily measurable: they have been selected because, on one side, they offer a cohesive perspective on the state of health of each river; on the other, because the measurement could be easily carried on by volunteers belonging to the local communities and selected through a “call to action”.
The Scientific Board of Legambiente (at national and local level) had an important role in planning the activities of the Operation Rivers Team and the monitoring phase, the structure of the Final Report and the topics covered by each phase of the campaign.
We thought at the sampling and monitoring phase as a way to spread a science-based approach for environmentalism on young people and local communities.
Among the expected results of our project, we included quantitative and qualitative results. The quantitative results did include: the number of participants to the initiatives; the number of people directly and indirectly engaged; the hours of training directed at the volunteers.
The qualitative results did concern the effectiveness of the activated processes, like: the engagement of communities, the training of responsible communities and the awareness of the interconnection between a healthy environment, a cohesive and inclusive community, the level of engagement of vulnerable people. These qualitative results have been collected through the elaboration of questionnaires that have been submitted to the participants and the beneficiaries of the project, in particular with the support of the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Pedagogy and Applied Psychology of the University of Padua, which analyzed the social impacts of the actions involving the building of communities.
The Final Report of the Operation Rivers campaigns (2021 and 2022) exposed the results of the analysis and the reports received with the objective of spreading and disseminating the results of the project.
Thanks to the Operation Rivers campaigns, it has been possible to raise the attention of public administrators, newspapers (some examples of the press coverage of the campaign are attached below) and associations on the state of the rivers involved and the environmental background of the region of Veneto.
The innovative character of the project is represented by its two parallel objectives: on one side, highlighting the natural ecosystem of the region of Veneto, increasing the awareness of citizens and communities on the state of health of their rivers and lands; on the other, at the same time, promoting and developing, within local communities, the culture of volunteerism and taking care of the environment.
The aspect of participation and activation of local communities is fostered by the monitoring campaign, which gathers data to be shared, and by the public meetings aimed at disseminating these data.
The project aimed at strengthening the connections of communities with their lands by consolidating and widening local networks, by giving them analysis tools to understand the ongoing changes that involve their lands. The project used a systemic approach, integrated with the local dimension that was necessary to activate communities and provide proactive answers to the social and environmental threats of today and tomorrow.
During the two editions of the “Operation Rivers” campaign (2021 and 2022), the seven main natural rivers of the region of Veneto have been analyzed: Adige, Bacchiglione, Brenta, Livenza, Piave, Po, Sile. The analysis also considered the monitoring of secondary rivers: Fratta-Gorzone, Piovego, Retrone, Dese and Canale Brentella.
The monitoring campaign was based on measurements/observations in the field and punctual sampling with the objective of providing significant information to make local communities aware of the conditions of the ecosystem of each river and to open dialogues with public institutions on the matter.
The state of health of the rivers is already monitored by ARPAV, the Regional Agency for the Prevention and Protection of the Environment of the Veneto region.
We decided to start from the historical analysis of ARPAV to select some significant chemical, physical, microbiological parameters (temperature, pH, conductivity, Escherichia coli, glyphosate, phthalates) that can be easily measured, so as a set of hydro morphological and biological parameters (ecological functionality, anthropic load, river litter) to be detected in the field.
The sampling of the rivers have been done through simple modalities and instrumentation, coherently with our purpose of spreading the concept of “citizen science”. However, each volunteer participated to a specific training on sampling, held by the technicians of ARPAV, who provided to them information concerning safety and correct use of the samplers while sampling.
The instrumentation used for sampling and analyzing was composed of professional instruments (the detailed list is available in the Final Report).
The model of activation and management of the project makes it replicable in many other rivers. We built operative tools that are easily replicable, first of all the plan for scientific monitoring of the rivers and the acquisition of specific instruments and equipment.
There has been a final evaluation meeting with partners and the most engaged volunteers, with the objective to elaborate a document conceived as a starting point to make the project directly replicable.
The final report of the project, published in the two years that the project took place (2021 and 2022), explains all of the phases of the project, starting from the “Call to action” and ending with the dissemination of the results and the analysis.
It includes a detailed list on the chemical, physical and microbiological parameters (e.g. temperature, pH) that we analyzed in the monitoring phase. It also describes the hydromorphological observations nearby the river.
It describes the methodology that we adopted for sampling (including the instrumentation) and the sampling scheme.
We thought at our project taking into account a local and a global dimension.
As regards the global dimension, we imagined the project as an important contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals defined by the 2030 Agenda and the targets of the European Union to address climate change, in particular those involving poverty, education and inequalities.
Locally, the project aims at raising the awareness of citizens and communities on the effects of climate change, a global threat that manifests itself in many ways and involves many different actors.
We looked at the volunteers and the participants to our project as drivers of change, who can promote the culture of volunteerism and science-based environmentalism in their local communities. The concept of enhancing the value of natural areas through participation, the scientific knowledge of natural rivers and the threats to which they are exposed is conceived as a participatory approach against climate change.
