Cavo Napoleonico

The Cavo Napoleonico or fuller of Reno ( Scolmatore del Reno in Italian) is a very important multifunction Canal artificial of the plain émilienne (Plaine of Po) which connects the rivers Reno and Po. Length only of 18 km, leaves little Reno downstream from Cento (FE) (between Bologna and Ferrare) and arrives in Po meadows of Salvatonica di Bondeno (FE), little downstream from the junction of the river Panaro). Of generally trapezoidal section, a size such, to be able to run out up to 1.000 m3/sec; it is characterized by a vast practically horizontal bed, allowing, on the majority of its course, hydrous flow bidirectional between the two major rivers of the plain of the area Emilie-Romagna.

Former situation

The plain which extends since Modena until Ravenne, from time immemorial, underwent the weather whims and the risings of the rivers and torrents which are jetent there. this plain, antiquement named Valle Padusa (of Padus , Roman name of Po) was only one vast marsh, unsuitable with the culture, that the Etruscan then the Roman S cleansed during the centuries. It is only starting from middle the XVIII century old, by the diversion of Reno in Primaro (Cavo Benedettino), then by the Cavo Napoleonico , that the things will be improving.

The hydraulic function

Its function, indeed, is double:

That principal, but occasionally exploited, in concomitance with the major risings of the Reno river, is of fuller of Reno (its second name).
That secondary, hydraulically iniquitous (i.e. contrary) compared to the first, but exploited in dry season, is that to feed by means of a kind of By-pass which passes under itself, the Canal Emilien Romagnol ( C.E.R .), when all the rivers of Romagna have an insufficient range for the estival needs for the intensive agriculture of the very rich plain of Emilie-Romagna: in this function, ranges in food of C.E.R . (which continues its course while cutting the plain bolognaise and romagnole almost to the river Uso, where it will have to finish in the Adriatic Sea, while passing progressively under all the series of the affluents of same Reno) are about a few tens of cubic meters at the second.

Le' dégorgeoir' functions as such, as long as Po does not have simultaneous risings with those of Reno, by maintaining a load hydrous lower; Because of effects, the same section of the Channel, evaluated on the 18 km length, feeds a kind of retaining tank which can contain tens of million cubic meters of water.

Operation occurs by actuating a double system of partitions posed at the beginning of Reno, in order to be able to regulate with a good precision the too full one; normally it is sufficient d'" alléger" Reno of 500-600 m3/sec to guarantee a certain peace with the valley, because it is difficult (statistically improbable) that all the affluents of the valley - Idice, Sillaro, Santerno and Senio, even with the channel Navile and the Canal of Savena -, doubted each one of complex control systems with retaining tanks, are at the same time in maximum rising.

The function of food of the Channel Emilien Romagnol ( C.E.R ). , on the other hand, is done by a similar system of partitions, assistant of a system of pumping of water of Po.

Historical signs

Like design of channel of discharging of the great risings of Reno, the channel is born with upright the XIX century, more precisely in 1807, precisely under the domination of Napoleon Bonaparte, with which bolognais them had required to provide definitively for the hydraulic regulation with the Reno river, whose, the disastrous raw ones caused very large damage in the plain, even after the realization of the Cavo Benedettino which deviated water in the old bed of the Po di Primaro then in the sea. Consequently, in locality of Sant' Agostino, where Reno forks abruptly towards the east, a first channel was dug with an aim of deriving water from Reno in the Panaro and then in Po. But with the decline of Napoleon, in 1814 works were abandoned. It is only in the decade of 1954-1963 that works were taken again, because meanwhile Reno had overflowed on the level of Poggio Renatico twice in three years (1949 and 1951).

It is about a work, therefore, much vaster and imposing of what, obviously, had not been projected at the time Napoleonean, but, in any event the name of the French emperor like reference mark kept. So in the primary function of fuller, the Cavo Napoleonico has a rather old origin, in the secondary function of estival feeder of C.E.R . (function defined in half of the years 1960), place the C.E.R , from which the construction begun in 1956, will be completely completed when it emerges in the river Uso.

internal bonds

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