Synoptic research on the potential impacts of water management strategy on Lake Maggiore ecosystem (NW, Italy): the Interreg project PVT

Lake Maggiore and the River Ticino outlet are freshwater bodies of pivotal environmental interest, shared between Italy and Switzerland. They constitute an important water resource and an environmental corridor connecting the Alpine natural water source to the vast water-exploiting Po Plain. Since the 1960s, when the first attempt of a share management was performed, the cross-border nature and often-conflicting needs of the many stakeholders involved makes the management of the common resources of this enlarged ecosystem very complex. In this context, the focus of the INTERREG project Parchi Ticino-Verbano (PVT; ID 481668) management is to define feasible, sustainable and shared environmental management strategies. The main aim of PVT is to understand the impacts of the management of summer lake water levels on the entire Lake Maggiore ecosystem (both the lake and its river outlet). An overview of the activities carried out during the project is shown, with a résumé on the effects of water level management on the lake biological assemblage composition and the functional traits of their components, the planned environmental restoration interventions along the lake shores and the river banks, the control of invasive alien plant species.