BELSIT PROJECT: DISSEMINATION AND KNOWLEDGE OF NATURAL AND CULTURAL RESOURCES IN THE BOLOGNESE APENNINE (ITALY)

BELSIT (Territorial Informative System of Local Environmental Beauties) is an educational project, coordinated by CSSAS (Soil Study Center), which aim is
to update and implement the natural and cultural assets of the Bolognese Apennine with the creation of a geodatabase applying a specific Geographical Information System (GIS).
Using GIS each information has its real geographical coordinates.
The BELSIT purpose is to incite the interest of citizen, in the particular among young, knowing more about the ecosystem complexity and the cultural and environmental local patrimony, often “invisibles” for a consciousness deficiency.
BELSIT could be used either at school by teachers for the culture dissemination and knowledge of the Apennine area or by students to learning cultural and environmental themes in this specific area really not well-known.
The methodological approach runs the integration of the existing photographical archive (5.800 images during the 1970-75 of the Bologna Province area) with the new photographical one (two different periods, 1980-90 and 2005-07 only for the Apennine area) setting out a useful documentation for the dynamics (or immutability) during forty years.
In addition to the environmental surveys, with a particular reference to the monumental trees, the most important plants, the typical lithological formation, the singular geomorphological aspects, the mineralogical and paleontological peculiarity, the springs and the faunistical habitat there are also the typological buildings collection.
These territorial analysis are studied to evaluate how man has adjusted the rural settlement to the ecosystem conditions since the XX century.
The results of the BELSIT project are available at the website http://www.geolab-onlus.org/BelSIT/
The linked geodatabase, easily downloaded, will provide the user with a in-depth knowledge of the natural and cultural resources in the Bolognese Apennine, allowing a comfortable visit to any interesting place using a GPS tracking.
BELSIT is a physical and cultural atlas for the educational dissemination of natural and cultural amenities using modern communication systems (website, publication, CD rom) useful to any cognitive level (schools, cultural association, local administration,..).