Quarry landscapes in the Veneto plain

Abstract

Even in the Veneto region, quarrying has ancient origins, dating back to Roman times in some important territories where stone materials were extracted from mountains and hills, such as in the Colli Euganei, Vicenza, Verona, Valcavasia and Castellavazzo areas.

The vast plain of central Veneto, on the other hand, is a rich source of aggregates, where quarrying was long limited to the extraction of relatively modest quantities of materials for mainly local consumption (especially clay, from the 19th century onwards, in parallel with the development of the brick industry), before taking on enormous proportions, especially with regard to sand and gravel, the “grey gold”, only from the mid-twentieth century onwards.

The phenomenon of quarrying, which has had a profound impact on this area, now represents an extraordinary opportunity due to the large number and extent of disused excavation sites where redevelopment operations can be carried out to restore the land that has long been taken away from the community and create new landscapes in which ecology and aesthetics, hydrogeological and environmental remediation, and social and economic utility can coexist and provide innovative responses to many unresolved issues of the contemporary world.