Effectiveness of forestry measures in Liguria

The thematic evaluation report was carried out in the framework of the independent evaluation service of the 2014-2022 Rural Development Programme (RDP) of Liguria and covers the implementation period up to 2022.

The scope of the evaluation is the assessment of the Measures (M) 8.03 (interventions to prevent damage to forests by fire and natural disasters), M8.04 (interventions to restore forests damaged by fire and natural disasters) and M8.05 (interventions to mitigate forests and increase environmental value), which focus on concentration in regional land areas of greater environmental criticality or potential.

The main objective of the evaluation is to assess the consistency of the spatial distribution of the different needs or intervention criticalities across the regional territory.

The evaluation has involved a territorial analysis, based on cross-referencing in a GIS (geographic information system) environment, the information from the maps relating to the environmental themes analysed, with the information on the amounts disbursed.

A quantitative analysis focused on the selection criteria used in the calls for implementing the sub-measures under examination.

The main data sources are monitoring and administrative data, as well as thematic cartography of interest. Data gaps experienced in the monitoring of interventions are highlighted. It was not possible to use vector information from the Italian agricultural information system AGEA (it. SIAN) to accompany the application, as it was mismatched in file format and in the definition of intervention areas.

The available monitoring data covered only the scores of funded applications, while for unfunded applications, the information was not available. Therefore, it was not possible to determine the criteria's selective capacity.

The main results concern the effectiveness of selection criteria. The largest expenditure values for sub-Measures 8.3 and 8.4 still occur in the highest risk class, confirming the importance of the selection criterion for areas with a high fire risk (8.3) and the selection criterion for detecting damage to forest potential (8.4).

Regarding hydrogeological risk, there is evidence of higher spending in municipalities in lower-risk classes and lower spending in higher-risk classes. The low specificity of the selection criterion for sub-Measure 8.3 with respect to hydrogeological risk may be due to the greater extent of areas at risk and the lack of risk gradation.

In the areas of highest combined risk (fire risk and hydrogeological risk), there is no evidence of a concentration of spending both in absolute terms and in spending per hectare of forest area.