The Berici Hills

Several particularly developed and branched valleys carve into the hilly complex: to the south, the Val Liona, which narrows considerably at Spiazzo and Pederiva di Grancona before dividing into the Val dei Gazzo and the Valle di Calto; to the west, the extensive sinuosity of the Brendola Valleys; to the north, the Sant’Agostino Valleys; to the northeast, the Fimon Valleys; and to the east, the Palù di Mossano, enclosed between the promontories of Montruglio and San Pancrazio.
The headwaters of the Val Liona and the Fimon Valleys almost meet near San Gottardo di Zovencedo in the heart of the relief, ideally dividing the Berici Hills into two parts.
The narrower western portion has a rather jagged conformation to the north, with various extensions near Altavilla Vicentina and Vicenza. Toward the south, it retains the appearance of a flat plateau that slopes down from the center of the Berici, with altitudes never exceeding 300 meters, in the direction of Lonigo and Orgiano.
Here, erosion has almost completely dismantled the more recent rock formations, mainly from the Oligocene period, so that karst forms now persist on the marly and friable limestones of the Upper Eocene, offering a landscape with very gentle morphologies due to the easy erodibility of the rocks. The eastern portion, by contrast, is broader and remains higher, with slopes ranging from very steep to vertical, having preserved portions of the original leveling surfaces that rest on Oligocene limestones, which are still widely represented here.

Precisely because of the predominantly limestone nature and widespread karst phenomena, the Berici Hills suffer from a chronic scarcity of water, particularly on the summit relief and the southern slopes.
Only at lower altitudes, where the terrain transitions to less permeable soil or at the foot of the hills, do some spring horizons appear. In some cases, these feed short and sparse streams whose flow, often intermittent, is directly influenced by rainfall patterns.
After flowing along the bottom of the aforementioned “scaranti,” the watercourses reach the plain and become canals that serve the dual function of collecting water and irrigating the countryside. They flow between artificial embankments, eventually merging into the hydrographic system that leads toward the sea.
In the Sant’Agostino Valleys, on the northern slope of the Berici Hills, this role is performed by the Rio Cordanello; in the Fimon Valleys, by the Debba canal, which also receives the waters of the Ferrara stream; in the Liona Valley, by the Liona canal, where numerous contributions converge to ensure the reclamation of the wide and flat indentation between Sossano and Orgiano.
South of the hills, the plain—today intensely cultivated and developed—is crossed by a dense network of canals. It is bounded, roughly speaking, to the east by the course of the Bisatto canal and to the west and south by the Guà-Frassine hydrographic system.

Within the hills, in the municipality of Arcugnano, Lake Fimon represents the last remnant of a natural basin. This follows the disappearance due to natural causes of the Granza pond, which occupied the bottom of a sinkhole between Orgiano and Lonigo, and, most notably, the artificial drainage of the Fontega pond near Arcugnano, as well as the abundant marshy areas that once surrounded the hilly relief on several sides: the Palù di Brendola, the Acque di Sant’Agostino, the Palù di Mossano, and the valley depressions between Barbarano Vicentino and Villaga, among others.