Risk-assessment of Lyme borreliosis and other tick-borne diseases at the foot of the mountains and in the Italian-Slovenian cross-border area: risk mapping. 
The need to gather information about ticks, and especially about Ixodes ricinus (lknown as the sheep tick or castor bean tick) and tick-borne diseases, such as Lyme borreliosis and TBE encephalitis, is particularly pressing owing to the healthcare emergency. This project aims at extending the territorial mapping in Slovenia (Sežana forest district), repeating controls in the previously examined areas of the Karst area around Trieste and studying some sample areas which represent the area at the foot of the mountains, where ticks are collected by means of the flagging technique. Research is carried out in order to draw up a map - by mining the sampling stations’ data - of the environments that are favourable to Ixodes ricinus. By crossing the habitat chart with the data about the registered clinical cases, the data concerning the rangers’ seropositivity, and the infectivity of the collected ticks, a risk map is produced showing the potential risk of tick-borne diseases transmission in the above-mentioned sample places. The tick-bite risk map can therefore be used for territorial prevention activity, in order to signal the most dangerous areas. the project envisages also meetings and information seminars on the territory.