Water is an essential element and the very lifeblood of Riserva San Massimo.

The nature reserve is situated in the Ticino valley, an extremely rare environment, speaking from a scenic point of view. The eponymous river is actually one of very few lowland streams that can “divagate”, thus change its own route, creating small distributaries, river beds, ponds and numerous temporary “wetlands”.

Besides, the territory is interspersed by karst springs, so called “risorgive”: from alpine glaciers, passing lands with very diverse types of soil, this water emerges on the impermeable grounds of the Po valley.

44 springs, the “risorgive” are situated inside the riserva, where water wells forth in its purest form, clear and rich in mineral salts. The water has a steady temperature (9°-12°) and is enough to irrigate the vegetative soil in the forested areas all year long. Crossing more than 400 hectares of forest and the peaty soil of the Riserva San Massimo, the water accumulates organic substances before eventually and naturally arriving on the rice fields.

The entity enjoys complete water autonomy. Supplying all the fields and reaching directly all the cultivated grounds, the water always remains pure and rich in organic substances.

And not only. These inexhaustible water reserves that feed the area, allow many different animal species to fulfill their own life cycle, even in drought periods. It also guarantees the presence of many frogs on the fields that counteract the rice weevil, a curculionidae that is known for eating the rice roots.

Besides, the fontanili guarantee the vitality and the mobility of fish species, amphibians, insects and birds, nesting as well as hibernating ones.