Geo-referenced database of Ornamental and Building Stones from Piemonte region: from Heritage Stone exploitation to potential economical and social impacts.

Piemonte region (Northern Italy) shows an extraordinary richness of ornamental stones, whose exploitation strongly influenced the local culture during the centuries. Indeed, more than 100 lithotypes, mainly exploited in valleys and mountain areas, are used in the local, urban and architecture heritage of the region.

The starting point of the present work consists in the creation and implementation of a dynamic geodatabase of the ornamental and dimension stones of Piemonte region. The geodatabase relies on the data model of the GeoPiemonte Map, derived from a thorough revision of existing geological maps and papers and presently available on a WebGIS application as an interactive scalable map on ARPA Piemonte geoportal.

The second step of the work consists in the dissemination and exploitation of results for enhancing the use of local stones for restoration of historical buildings, infrastructures (eg. stone bridges) and rural villages, and for the construction of new “sustainable” buildings and houses (energy saving, use of natural materials, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions due to transports, etc.).

The structure of the DB and the information reported in it are easily accessible and can be elaborated, implemented and shared not only by researchers, but also by public authorities, trade associations, consultants, etc., in order to (potentially):

• better program quarrying activities and enhance the exploitation at local level, trying to boost the use of local stones for restoration of historical buildings, rural villages and infrastructures;
• strongly promote the knowledge of the cultural and historical heritage at local level (not only historical villages, but also historical quarries, quarrymen villages, areas characterized by the presence of working plants, etc.);
• collect information for all the stone materials and cultural heritage present in Piemonte region.

The structure of the DB and the methodology to collect data to improve it are replicable and applicable to other regions (at national and international level). The use of the DB may have economic and social returns, due to the reinvigoration of the ornamental and dimension stones market and to the potential growth of the quarrying activities (implementation of the staff in charge) and of their spin offs (working plants, restoration experts, designers, building enterprises, etc.).

Many of the stones reported in the DB could be considered as Heritage Stones, being some of them already presented in previous congresses and papers (Montorfano and Baveno granites, serizzi and beole gneisses, Candoglia marble, Luserna stone gneiss, Bargiolina quartzite, etc.).

This work was carried out in the framework of the GeoDIVE research project concerning the geodiversity of the Piemonte region, “from rocks to stones, from landforms to landscapes”, funded by Compagnia di San Paolo and University of Torino.