Traditional management of lagoons for fishery can be inconsistent with restoration purposes: the Valli di Comacchio study case

We gathered water and macrobenthic data over a 5 yrs-long period in the Valli di Comacchio, the largest lagoon in the Po River Delta (northern Adriatic), to evaluate the response of ecological indices and test their sensitivity against environmental variables. Out of 84 sampling points, only 12 through the BITS index and 28 through the M-AMBI index exhibited a Good/High ecological quality status. Environmental variables representative of eutrophication did not correlate with indices. The impacts experienced by the Valli during the last 30 years seem to have brought to the disruption of the pelagic-benthic food web. Exploitation of eel fishery, whose management is traditionally characterized by long water residence time, seems thus inconsistent with restoration purposes