Integrated monitoring of Bussento and Calore Salernitano rivers within the Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park

The Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park (PNCVDA) is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List for its outstanding cultural landscape, its biodiversity and geodiversity. The protection of areas like the PNCVDA relies on clever land planning, obtained through a constant environmental monitoring and a correct use of the information it provides. To this end, a 3-year integrated monitoring, funded by the PNCVDA, of 2 important rivers of the area, i.e. Bussento and Calore Salernitano, has been planned, combining both water physico-chemical analyses and elemental biomonitoring using two aquatic plants (Apium nodiflorum (L.) Lag. and Mentha aquatica L.). During the 1 st year, spatial resolution of the study was on average 1.5 Km for the Bussento (21 sampling sites) and 3 Km for the Calore Salernitano (18 sampling sites). The analysis of an ensemble of variables, encompassing 21 chemical elements, 7 anions, photosynthetic pigments, dissolved oxygen, pH and conductivity, as well as the use of multivariate identification of spatial outliers allowed us not only to identify critical sites, but also to infer about the causes of environmental contamination. In most of the area, water has an overall outstanding quality, although localized pollution from wastewater discharges, metallic structures/wastes in the riverbed and sulfate leaching from agricultural soils has been detected in a few sites.