ENVIRONMENTAL RISK EVALUATION TO ASSURE THE QUALITY OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS

The quality of agricultural products may be influenced by the environmental pollution. The prevention of pollution risk, or at least its knowledge, can be supported by the monitoring of the pollutions sources of potential environmental risk (e.g., incinerators, thermal power plans, highways, industrial plants, etc.) near the agricultural area of production. An instrument to assess this potential risk, related to the presence of pollution sources, may be a “Precaution Index”. This index was developed starting from the inventory and geo-referencing of all pollution sources in the study area, using a GIS software. To take into account the relevance of each source, a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDM), that is ideal to support spatial decision making process, was used. Results are represented in a digital map of “Precaution Index” for the considered regions.