Reclamation

Reclaming an area means essentially "to clean it", that is to eliminate the different substances that contaminate it altering its characteristics.

The refusals to be digested are:

• the industrial refusals

• the voluminous refusals

• The special refusals

The aim of reclamations is to transform polluted, dangerous or umproductives areas into lands that can be used by man.

In Italy the concept of reclamation has tightly been correlated to the attempt to eradicate malarian districts.

The malaria is a feverish illness that is transmitted by the simple bite of a mosquito infected by the malarial parasite,living in the swamps.

Oriental Veneto has been one of the greatest environmental laboratories where tools, techniques and strategies for the hydraulic reclamation of the territory were experimented.

The purpose was to stop malaria and to make the land fertile and productive .

Modification:

the environmental transformations produced by the man in the territories between the Livenza and the Tagliamento rivers were massive.

The transformation of lagoon and marshy into a productive land obviously transformed the landscape too .

The reclamations in the XX century had been preceded by private interventions, like the ones carried out in Caorle. In 1885 the "Canal Lugugnana", a consortium including the marshy territories between the Lemene the Tagliamento and the Livenza rivers was founded.

The work of reclamation in the area of Portogruaro came to an end in the sixties, with the drainage of Vallevecchia, an intervention that cancelled a marshy environment of notable ecological and naturalistic interest, but lacking in agrarian vocation.

Draining pumps

Around 1800 the first draining pumps were invented. The first were composed by a wheel that collected the water and threw it into the river.

The draining pump is used for absorbing and removing great masses of water for reclamation or in cases of flood . The draining pump were

used for reclamation of large marshy areas in Italy in the XX century: the Po Delta, the mouths of the Piave, Reatina Plain, the Pontin Marshes.

Then the steam draining pump was built. People that worked near the draining pumps after 2 - 3 years became completely deaf because of the noise, bonnets of protection didn't exist at the time.

From Portogruaro to Summaga: the draining pumps are along the Reghena river.

For technical reasons the area west of Portogruaro, is divided into small drainage basin.

The draining pump of Portogruaro

Created by

Carlo

FloridaAlessia

Giorgia