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.
Author Biography:
Paolo Turrini (B.A. and M.A University of Bologna; Ph.D. University of Florence) is Assistant Professor of International Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Trento. He is member of the editorial or scientific boards of the Italian Yearbook of International Law, the University of Bologna Law Review and Questions of International Law. His fields of expertise, or of main interest, are the history and theory of international law, international economic law and environmental law, especially water law. His publications include articles on virtual water, international trade in bulk water, and the EU water policy.Antonio Massarutto is Associate Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Udine and Research Fellow at GREEN, the research centre on Geography, Resources, Environment, Energy and Networks of Bocconi University, Milan, and SEEDS (an inter-university research centre on sustainability and environmental economics). His research activity isstrongly applied and policy-oriented, and is mainly focused on applied environmental economics, industrial organisation and regulation of network industries, the circular economy, water economics and policy, and waste management. He authored several publications, both in academic journals and addressed to the general public and the policy community.Marco Pertile is Associate Professor of International Law at the Faculty of Law and the School of International Studies of the University of Trento. He is co-director of the journal Questions of International Law and member of the Editorial Committee of the Italian Yearbook of International Law. He teaches a course on Human Rights and Natural Resources at the Paris School of International Affairs of Sciences Po, and has previously taught, in Geneva, at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and at the Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. His research interests include the international law of natural resources, the law of armed conflicts and human rights law.Alessandro de Carli is Research Fellow at GREEN, the research centre on Geography, Resources, Environment, Energy and Networks of Bocconi University, Milan. He is also the director of the AquaLAB Foundation, a multidisciplinary research centre on water resources and water services. From 2008 to 2013, he coordinated the Master in Green Management, Energy and Corporate Social Responsibility (MaGER) at Bocconi University. He is one of the founding members of the Italian Association of Environmental Engineers (AIAT). He carries out his research and consultancy activities in the field of ecological economics applied to water resources, in order to combine territorial development with the protection of environmental resources.
