Copyright 2019 Accademia dei Georgofili
Vaia storm caused damage to civilian infrastructures and forests in the territories of the north-eastern Italian Alpine mountains due to a combined action linked to the intensity of precipitation (aggravated by a previous period of drought) and wind. From the first days after the event the gravity of the consequences of the hurricane was realized, aware of having to face the restoration of the territory with the adoption of emergency interventions as it was sanctioned by the ordinances issued by the Head of the Civil Protection Department. The action plan, the risk of a depreciation of the value of the timber and the winter season characterized by minimal snowfall led the owners (Municipalities and Regole) to issue auctions for very unusual quantities of timber (from tens to hundreds of thousands of cubic meter) that attracted the interest not only of domestic and foreign wood industries, but also of entrepreneurial groups operating in the sector of bioenergy, leading to a remodeling of the wood market that has been characterized itself from local to international. This has stressed an organization of transport logistics that goes beyond the experiences gained so far and requires a different approach in terms of solutions and strategies. Faced with a substantial uniformity in the execution of forestry operations with the widespread adoption of high levels of mechanization (harvester and forwarders, cable cranes, cable cranes combined with processors), the approaches to the transport of the collected material are different. both in terms of managing the measurements of the volumes of the material to be loaded, and in terms of the choice of transport routes, functional to the dimensions of the transport vehicles and to intermediate and final destinations. A case study concerning the situation recorded on the Altopiano dei Sette Comuni (Vicenza) is reported as an explanation of the concepts analyzed.
