Water Management Strategies for Flood Control Near Veronella

To combat the flood risk caused by excess water needing to drain from a territory, specifically the Lower area, which has become too impermeable due to concrete, hydraulic engineering suggests that only three options can be considered. “Provided that maintenance interventions are carried out on the existing water network,” explains Umberto Anti, technical director of the Consorzio di Bonifica Zerpano Adige-Guà, “it is no longer feasible to think about building new channels to counteract the phenomenon of land impermeabilization.

Therefore, different corrective methods must be found, also because, and this is a remark that accurately reflects reality, we are not near the sea, and thus our surplus water creates problems for those further downstream.” “In places where the ground is gravelly, it is possible to use this material for drainage, directing water deep underground via proper drains. However, the situation becomes much more complex in areas where such conditions are not present.”

Water containment and storage systems

The newest approach in such cases involves creating temporary storage reservoirs that temporarily flood during heavy rains and gradually release water into the nearest watercourse, thus allowing it to absorb the excess more gradually. “This,” continues Anti, “is a system we have already tested experimentally and which now will have its first definitive implementation in the industrial area between Veronella and Zimella.”

The industrial zone, whose already constructed part is flooded whenever it rains, will have a 6-hectare square tank built inside it, near the green area. This tank will flood for three to four days, roughly ten times a year. “And where there are no areas available to be converted into reservoirs? Then, there remains only the use of water pumps, which are less reliable because they can malfunction or fail due to power outages.”

An example of this is the Cologna area, in the end part of via Roma, where the State has now funded work worth one billion euros to straighten the final section of the Tartarello drain. This will end in a pond from which 4,000 liters per second of water will be pumped, releasing it into the Fratta river.” (lu.fi.)