Centro di Geomorfologia Integrata

Description

The Center for Integrated Geomorphology for the Mediterranean Area (CGIAM) was born following a series of events organized at the end of the 60s, on the initiative of scientific institutions of national and international importance, whose purpose was to promote coordinated action in the scientific field to address the problems related to regional development from an "integrated" point of view.

Already in other European countries, Integrated Study Centers called Integrated Geomorphology Centers had been established, and one of the areas where this need was most felt was the Mediterranean one, due to the importance in this area of development programs, social and cultural heritage and the complexity of the defense of Mediterranean soils and coastal areas from pollution.

Hence the commitment of Italian scientific bodies and UNESCO to find a solution on the only concretely possible level, a plan that is Coordinated Mediterranean, given the impossibility of solving many problems related to the defense and development of the individual Mediterranean regions without framing them in the broader context of the Mediterranean.

To this end, after a conference held in Calabria in 1967, organized by UNESCO, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno, in October 1973 a Conference was organized in Potenza, organized by the Geological Survey of Italy and the Institute of Botany of the University of Rome, under the aegis of UNESCO and the Basilicata Region, attended by specialists of European importance and among the major schools then existing in the field of integrated geomorphology, such as:

• the International Training Center in Delf, Enschede – Netherlands,
• the International Training Center in Sheffeld, Reading – England,
• the Coastal Geomorphology Centre of Dinard – France.

During the meeting it was recognized the need to establish a "Single Coordinating Center" to address the problems related to the defense and regional development of the territories of the entire Mediterranean Basin.

The full success of the conference not only sanctioned and codified the need to establish such a Mediterranean Center, but, underlined the unanimous consent of all the participants in suggesting Basilicata as the seat of the Center, for its geological, geomorphological, landscape, environmental characteristics and because strategically located at the center of the Mediterranean Basin.

The advantages and the opportunity to establish in Basilicata the Center of Integrated Geomorphology for the Mediterranean Area, were particularly supported by the representative of UNESCO, the Soviet Prof. Konstantin Lange, Director of the Earth Sciences and Geomorphology Section, especially in reference to the maneuver of some delegate French who had advanced the candidacy of the city Montpellier in France.

The choice of Basilicata and then of Potenza, was then unanimously approved with the drafting of a resolution in which the bystanders, among other things, hoped for the organization, in Basilicata, of an international operational base such as the one described above.