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Zompo lo Schioppo is an example of intermittent karst source dying out every year in summer and autumn. The water spurts from a steep calcareous wall with a jump of more than 80 meters, forming the highest natural waterfall of the Apennine.
The link between the landscape of the Reserve and the water element is so evident that it influences both its aspect and the ecosystem. The charm deriving from this combination of elements was noticed in the past by visitors, among the others Alexandre Dumas, who praised it in their travel diaries.
The beechwood works as a "protection" on this system, and it forms together with it a landscape unity representing the image of the Reserve. The water can be found everywhere in the Reserve, from the highest sources situated at 1700 meters to the towns at lower altitudes. However, this presence represents only an aspect of its course: as a matter of fact, a concealed subterranean branching hydrography linked to the widespread karst phenomena develops in caves, karst valleys, wells and dolines, among the fissured limestone forming most of the backbone of these mountains and flowing out in some cases in bountiful sources like the one of Pantaneccia, which meets the water needs of Valle Roveto.
Then comes the man, who shaped the hydrographic net with artificial courses and canals of various dimensions to exploit the potentialities of water. The technical ability with which men in the past were able to canalize the waters for irrigation purposes or to set the machinery going is well-known. This tradition, particularly alive among the Cistercian monks, still survives thanks to the so-called "formelle", that is earth canals irrigating the cultivated fields, which are the evidence of a reasonable exploitation of the territory.
Of greater impact is the big artificial canal built by Enel, which makes the waters of the stream Lo Schioppo flow into a "loading" lake to move in the end, through a pressure water pipe, the turbines of one of the power stations in the territory of Morino.
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