Recharge process of a dune aquifer (Roman coast, Italy)

The urban development plan of left bank of the Tiber river Delta preserved a 9 km2 stretch of dune belt with a monumental coastal pine forest (Castelfusano forest), which is nowadays portion of a natural reserve managed by Municipality of Rome. The forest was largely destroyed by a first huge fire in July 2000 and by another one in July 2017. A reforestation project involved the installation of a monitoring network composed by 21 piezometers to check the groundwater depth and its degree of salinization after the 2000 fire. By examining series of water head measurements and chemical -physical parameters carried out from 2002 up today, the current research aims to analyse the effects of 2000 and 2017 fires on the recharge process. The first result consists in the definition of the hydrogeological conceptual models of the dune aquifer: a shallow fresh aquifer overlapping two deeper confined salinized aquifers. The comparison between the amount of the yearly recharge, evaluated in different periods, showed a significant recharge rate decrease (about 36%) to be attributed likely at the 2000 fire effect. The research is still ongoing in order to verify and detail the changes of the recharge processes induced by the 2000 and 2017 fires.