A First Step towards Developing a Decision Support System Based on the Integration of Environmental Monitoring Activities for Regional Water Resource Protection

Abstract

The topic of diffuse pollution is of particular interest from technical, scientific, and administrative management points of view. Diffuse pollution is defined as the contamination or chemical, physical, or biological alterations of environmental matrices caused by diffuse sources and not attributable to a single origin. In this study, various sources of diffuse pollution such as nitrates, pesticides, metals, and plastics were analysed. This was aimed at the implementation of a decision support system able to represent the state of environmental matrices degradation, with particular attention to water resources, and to make decisions evaluating similar environmental contexts. The potential of the developed system makes it possible to identify areas with the same environmental characteristics, referring to the various activities that create diffuse pollution and areas with the same pressure values on the environmental matrices. The system provides the political decision-maker with greater awareness of the environmental state, thus enabling him to apply more accurate land management policies. The created system, based on open-source software, which can be implemented with additional available data sources, is characterised by a data processing workflow that provides output information at the municipal level, so that it can be managed both by mayors and regional managers who are able to share the same information with all.