Photographic representation of biodiversity and countercurrent aesthetics of marine landscapes. – Questioning the role of images in the communication and valorization of biodiversity, as well as in the constitution of cultural geographic imaginaries and environmental sensibilities, this paper focuses on the aesthetics of marine landscapes in some contemporary artistic and activist practices. More specifically, it investigates the function of photography in the construction and deconstruction of stereotypes related to coastal areas and islands (between artistic traditions and tourist imaginaries), thus in the representation of issues related to biodiversity. Contrary to approaches that tend to show marine landscapes exclusively as picturesque or sublime sceneries, projects such as Else, All Will Be Still (Ravi Agarwal, 2013-2015), After the Storm (Amy Balkin, 2016), The Shape of Water Vanishes in Water (Marina Caneve, 2018) and Invisible – Paysages productifs (Nicolas Floc’h, 2018-2020), seek to express the environmental, social and economic inequalities aggravated by climate change and its consequences on marine biodiversity.

The new opportunities offered by immersive and inclusive technologies to represent and rediscover the complex relationship between human communities and water resources. – In order to know, represent and interpret the complex relationship between water landscapes and human communities the new technologies (immersive cartography, three-dimensional web, augmented reality, 3D environments) represent extraordinary and functional tools both for research and for territorial information and promotion actions in terms of tourism. Evidence of this is the project “Tourist Itineraries to Discover the Waters of Italy”, conceived and promoted by the GECOAGRI LANDITALY Interuniversity Research Group Association and financed by ACEA, aimed at promoting a process of water resource enhancement in the dimension of environmental, economic and social sustainability. The authors through some exemplifications and using a methodology of operational analysis, characterized by new syntaxes, reconstruct with the help of augmented reality and immersive technologies, as well as the canonical geocartographic and documentary sources, the material and immaterial dimension of the water resource in the Conca reatina, Umbilicus Italiae, where the sociocultural dynamics underlying the relationship between water and population, narrate experiences of vulnerability and development, participation and conflict, protection and threat. Through 10 ten interactive and implementable totem-stations, it is possible to embark on an inclusive and participatory journey that allows people to explore even inaccessible places. Not only video and audio, historical and thematic cartographies, photos and three-dimensional images, but also drone shots from which to observe from above what nature and culture have achieved and, if necessary, to land in particular places reconstructed through augmented reality that allows one to observe them as they were and as they are today, making clear the processes of transformation of which signs and sedimentations remain in the landscape palimpsest.

The management of water resources in mountain contexts in ecological transition. – The frequency and concatenation of environmental and climatic phenomena requires a reflection on our way of managing the change, and in this direction the principle of “custody of the high lands” enhances the awareness of the communities on ecosystem services related to the precious water resources, essential to the biodiversity and the basis of stable economies for the mountain. The contribution intends to build a critical framework on interventions oriented to stem the water crises, adopted in the most vulnerable national mountain areas but which at-tempt the difficult territorial transition path on the climate tendency scenarios. The strategies will be analyzed, promoted by regional legislation and innovative regulations, for the territorialization of the actions on the management of the resource, but also complex projects and multi-sectoral studies with direct repercussions on physical and cultural landscapes, which therefore lead to inclusive forms of governance and participate.

Water resources as an engine of local development: the case of the “water villages” of Rasiglia and Borghetto. – There are several cities have made water their hall-mark of tourist attractiveness and socio-economic development. In Italy, this category includes all the large coastal cities (such as Venice, Naples, Cagliari or Palermo) or those crossed by large rivers (Bologna, Florence, Rome), the centers that have sprung up on the edges of large lakes (Riva del Garda, Bolsena, Bracciano, etc. ) or those known because they are linked to the presence of hot springs (Saturnia, Montecatini, Fiuggi Acqui, etc.), but also the localities that bear precisely the title of “water village” and thus make it a distinctive and characteristic element. It is precisely these small and charming villages, hamlets of municipalities in inland areas, scattered in the various regions of Italy that over time have been able to enhance water both as a landscape element but also as an element of production and economic development, that are the subject of this contribution. Among these, the cases of Rasiglia and Borghetto will be analyzed to describe the role that technology in the past has played in building the relationship of these localities with water, the role it has today and could have in the next future to contribute to their path toward building a circular economy and thus sustainable development.

Redefining the city-river relationship: a look at the Turin area. – The relationship between the city and the river is being profoundly redefined in the context of the water crisis, in the relationship between the natural and the built environment. The paper will focus on the case of Turin, where deindustrialisation has led to morphological, functional and symbolic transformations of previously industrialized areas, with a new process of landscape construction, in some cases based on the heritage of the industrial past, in others on a new meaning (re)attributed to the environment, as the main physical and symbolic dimension of the re-territorialisation of post-indus-trial spaces. This paper focuses on the relationship between rivers and cities, and in particular on how rivers are once again becoming a (potentially) founding element of post-industrial landscapes. We will draw on some case studies in the Turin area, where the river emerges as a potentially structuring element in rethinking places deeply marked by deindustrialisation and in imagining and constructing a new landscape.

Wetlands, leaf fodder trees and ancient grasslands: a characterization of the environmental heritage of transhumance. – For centuries, transhumance has been a socio-economic system capable of shaping mountain landscapes and environments. The paper presents two case studies aimed at identifying the historical-ecological traces of seasonal breeding systems to characterize the environmental legacy of transhumance. The proposed approach enables the evaluation of the positive externalities of past pastoral practices in terms of vegetation resources activation (leaf-fodder trees, ancient grasslands) and water resources maintaining (springs, ponds, small lakes, peat-bogs, etc.).

"Waters, stones and stories. Mediterranean waterfronts, coastal urban landscapes"