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This book provides the first comprehensive overview of the most important water-related issues that centre on Italy, analysed from several disciplinary perspectives – such as hydrology, economics, law, sociology, environmental sciences and policy studies – in order to promote full understanding of the challenges the country is facing and the ways it could best tackle them. Despite the misconception that Italy is a water-scarce country, is in fact quite rich in water resources. Such resources, however, are unevenly distributed over the Italian territory. Italy’s northern regions rely on quite an abundant quantity of freshwater, whereas in the southern area water endowment is limited. Moreover, climatic differences between North and South contribute to widen the divide. This disparity has notable consequences of socio-economic character, some of which, in turn, feed back into the environmental conditions of Italian regions: pollution, floods, landslides and droughts are among the problems affecting the country. There are numerous features of water use and consumption that distinguish Italy from other comparable countries, such as the significant role played by agriculture (a water-intensive activity), a lead position in the consumption of bottled water, lower-than-average prices of water and a far-from-optimal efficiency of waterworks. All such aspects, and many others, make Italy an essential case study.
This paper provides an overview of the Italian water management system, with particular reference to the links between agriculture and water resources, and emphasis on underground resources. Our objective is mainly descriptive at this level; nonetheless, we try to evaluate patterns of interaction between agriculture and water resources policy from the point of view of water sustainability. After a short description of the main hydrologic and institutional aspects, the paper goes into the analysis of the most important issues and ongoing policies. We show that the link between agriculture and groundwater is but very weak in "Mediterranean" Italy. While most of the pollution problems regard Northern Italy - that resembles much more continental Europe than Mediterranean countries with respect to hydrologic and climatic patterns - the use of the water table for irrigation is restricted to only a few areas, since most of the agricultural water is derived from surface resources. On the other side, agriculture remains by far the largest water user in Italy, and one of the primary causes of pollution.
This book describes the water sector as it is structured in Italy. The first part describes the legal framework which rules the sector in Italy, its evolution since the last 20 years, and its weaknesses. The second part describes the governance of Italian water utilities, distinguishing full public-owned companies from public-private partnership and private companies. The third part reports insights on water utilities performance to enquire the presence of economies by scope, scale and density in the Italian water sector, and to verify the presence of any differences in terms of efficiency and tariffs among public and private firms. The fourth part describes the investment policies carried out by water utilities, observing the total amount of per capita investments and the actual realization of planned investments. The fifth part describes if and how utilities applied water conservation practices to incentive the sustainable water use.
This book offers a comprehensive framework of the current state of water resources in Italy and of the main stages of the evolutionary way in the last decades for achieving an integrated, sustainable and equitable water resources management. The main paradigms of water resources development are identified as: i) engineering and economic approach to water resources exploitation, ii) focus on pollution control and water-excess management, iii) a comprehensive approach toward a sustainable and equitable distribution of resources and effective risk reduction of water-related disasters. After a section devoted to the analysis of some historic stages in the legislation framework and the governance of water and soil, with particular reference to planning, design, building and operation of water systems, two sections deal with the estimation of water resources availability on national territory and estimation of water demands in municipal, agricultural, industrial, ecosystem sectors. The complex problems that the Italian society has to solve in the water field and the main challenges of a changing world are discussed in the fourth section of the volume. The book will not only be useful for water professionals, but also for citizen who like to discern the key factors which delay the recognition of water as a resource for life. The description of the problems and adopted solutions could also serve as a guideline for similar situations encountered in other countries, improving the preparation of the responsible people.
All over the world countries struggle with water stress. Problems vary from water scarcity and a degrading water quality, to floods and a rising sea level due to climate change. The European Union adopted a Water Framework Directive to improve the sustainability of water management in its member states. Water management should be coordinated at the level of river basins as a whole. Interests of various user groups should be better represented. River basin visions should take into account the impact of all human activities on the status of the resource. Water legislation needs streamlining and more focus on its implementation. The European Union advocates regulating water prices by charging the costs of water services on the basis of full cost recovery and the polluter pays principle. This book examines the development of water management in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy and Switzerland. It is based on the European research project EUWARENESS. The authors apply a theoretical framework for the analysis of institutional regimes, water governance and property rights. The evolution of national water resource regimes is described over a period of almost 200 years (1800-2000). The long-term perspective enables the reader to see the conditions under which regime transformation and paradigm change are made possible. The book also includes a critical analysis of policy making by the European Union, and a comparative review and analysis of regime development in the six countries involved. This book is followed by another volume published with Kluwer Academic Publishers on "Integrated Governance and Water Basin Management", edited by Hans Bressers and Stefan Kuks.
This publication brings together the recent work of the OECD on water management issues. It identifies the main policy challenges addressed by that work for sustainable water management.
Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) has become a global paradigm for the governance of surface, coastal and groundwaters. This Special Issue contains twelve articles related to the transfer of IWRM policy principles. The articles explore three dimensions of transfer—causes, processes, outcomes—and offer a theoretically inspiring, methodologically rich and geographically diverse engagement with IWRM policy transfer around the globe. As such, they can also productively inform a future research agenda on the ‘dimensional’ aspects of IWRM governance. Regarding the causes, the contributions apply, criticise, extend or revise existing approaches to policy transfer in a water governance context, asking why countries adopt IWRM principles and what mechanisms are in place to understand the adoption of these principles in regional or national contexts. When it comes to processes, articles in this Special Issue unpack the process of policy transfer and implementation and explore how IWRM principles travel across borders, levels and scales. Finally, this set of papers looks into the outcomes of IWRM policy transfer and asks what impact IWRM principles, once implemented, gave on domestic water governance, water quality and water supply, and how effective IWRM is at addressing critical water issues in specific countries.