Environmental quality in the park of Naples hills (Italy) before the opening of Chiaiano’s dump (Naples)

The metropolitan Park of Naples hills (Italy) was instituted by the regional law 17/2003 with the aim of the green area’s safeguard of the city hills. However, in consequence of the waste emergency in the Campanian region, the Italian government decided the opening of a dump in Chiaiano, a quarter located inside the Park. Through the utilization of the birds as bioindicators, we studied the environmental quality of the whole area, correlating the avifaunal indices to some landscape indices. The results show, generally, that the various areas of the park were constituted from a fragmented landscape and not many mature birds communities. The dump site, called Chiaiano wood, was not so different from other areas of the park because of a similar landscape, formed from old chestnut coppices alternated to cultivation and buildings. This is an important nesting site for some predators, as Falco peregrinus and Falco tinnunculus and of some Chiroptera. This is why the dump might cause the lost of rocky habitats in the Chiaiano wood with a remarkable impact on the ecosystem.