Lanche di Runate e Giarre Gavazzi

The oxbow-lakes of Runate andGerra Gavazzi are located on the left bank of the river Oglio and form two small nature reserves within a landscape strongly modelled by human activities.

Areas typical of the lower Oglio valley, they were dug out from the flood deposits of the river during the ice age, when the latter had no banks and flowed freely modifying its path each time there was a large flood, creating large, sinuous curves in the river valley. The river bends of Runate andGerra Gavazzi have remained isolated by the river which abandoned its course, not following a natural event (jumping a meander) but due to a change made at the end of the XVIII century, with the aim of aiding navigation.
Later the abandoned bends, also called “dead Oglio”, became marshland fostering the settlement of animals and plants typical of marshlands, now rare in the whole of the plain of Lombardy. The oxbow-lakes are fed by the water table, near the surface, and by surfacing water flowing from the surrounding terraces and emerging at the foot of the banks (resurgences).
(Oglio South park text)