Study of the environmental impact in show caves: A multidisciplinary research

Caves are one of the most important and well-known geological features in the world, an environmental and cultural heritage, as well as an important economic resource for many countries. Their scientific and aesthetic value is often threatened by tourism, which unfortunately exposes them to a series of risks of degradation and, sometimes, irreparably changes. Therefore, the study of underground environment becomes essential in order to protect and preserve it over time. The national project "SHOWCAVE" aims to study, classify and mitigate the environmental impact in the tourist caves to finally propose useful solutions for their management. In particular, the DIATI team of the Politecnico di Torino deals with the acquisition of monitoring data of the main environmental parameters, the analysis of the speleothems corrosion and the analysis of the presence of microplastics in caves. The most advanced geomatics techniques are used to illustrate the topography of these cavities, their development relative to the surface and the studied areas. The researches have just begun, and in this work the study methodologies used and the first results obtained by our multidisciplinary research group are presented.