In Italia, l’approccio al problema dell’inquinamento idrico è tendenzialmente “riduttivo”, nel senso che oggetto di indagine/intervento è il territorio nel quale è ubicata la sorgente emissiva come nel caso dei SIN, siti di interesse nazionale. Tuttavia, nel caso delle matrici idriche, per loro natura non “circoscrivibili”, gli inquinanti tendono a diffondersi nelle aree interessate dal percorso delle acque, producendo effetti su ambiente e salute anche al di fuori dei limiti dei territori inquinati. Pertanto, si ritiene fondamentale definire metodologie di ricerca e di analisi per la costruzione di un quadro geografico ed epidemiologico delle principali fonti di contaminazione e dei corpi idrici interessati da inquinamento con potenziale rilevanza eziologica ed evidente rilevanza sociale. L’obiettivo che ci si pone è triplice: rispondere alla domanda sociale, individuare i territori e le popolazioni a rischio, predisporre interventi a garanzia della qualità dell’acqua e della salute. Al riguardo si propone la ricerca-azione come chiave metodologica per coinvolgere la popolazione e far emergere il legame fra l’evidente rilevanza sociale e le malattie come criterio principale e linea guida per individuare e localizzare i casi che costituiranno il quadro geografico su menzionato. In Italy, institutions have generally taken a “reductive” approach to the problem of polluted water, because the object of investigation/action is usually the territory where polluting sources are located, such as the case of SIN (places of national interest). However, polluting substances don’t know borders and because their water medium is not “confined”, they disperse throughout zones crossed by contaminated waters. This can seriously impact the environment and health of people who live beyond these territories containing the polluting sources, too. Thus, we think it is fundamental to define research and analysis’ methodologies to elaborate a geographical and an epidemiological frame concerning main polluting sources and contaminated waters with potential etiologic and evident social significance. The aim is to reply to social requests, to individualize territories and populations threatened by pollution and to act to grant water quality and health. We propose the action-research as the key-methodology to engage people and show the link between evident social significance and disease as the main criterion and guideline to locate and pinpoint the cases forming the above-mentioned frame.

The aim of this article, using a paradigmatic approach, is to understand the evolution of agritouristic activity in Italy, to evaluate the possible local impacts referring to Itria Valley and considering the case of study of the organic firm “Raggio Verde” in Cisternino (Brindisi, Italy) with its project of multifunctional initiatives through the creation of an organic ecological agritourism. The thesis supported is that the local impact of the agritouristic activity is different according to the reference’s paradigm (market liberalism or ecological-territorial) and to the agritourism model (with reference to environmental and social relations, and to the dependence’s level from external sources). The methodology is inductive, based on qualitative and quantitative analysis, on indirect, direct and participant observation by a research on the field.

RIASSUNTO: Dal 1980 si è assistito alla privatizzazione crescente dei beni comuni e dei servizi connessi che subordina l’accesso alle risorse alla capacità economica degli utenti e la funzione sociale dei beni al profitto e alle logiche di mercato. Scopo del presente testo è dimostrare, attraverso un approccio induttivo, che questo si realizza pure con riferimento all’acqua, bene vitale per eccellenza, e anche quando gestita da società per azioni a intero capitale pubblico come nel caso dell’acquedotto pugliese. La forma giuridica, infatti, non è neutra ma definisce gli obiettivi e le politiche aziendali, “indipendentemente” dalla titolarità del servizio. In Puglia, al riguardo, si osserva un aumento crescente delle tariffe e interruzioni della fornitura in caso di morosità, mentre il diritto umano all’acqua, sancito dall’ONU nel 2010, non è garantito. SUMMARY: Since 1980, commons and connected services’ privatizations are increasing. So, the access to resources is dependent on the users’ economic capacity and the commons’ social function is conditional on the profit and market logic. The aim of this text is proving that the above-mentioned mechanisms regard also water even if it is a vital common and it is managed by a stock company owned by public institution, as the Apulia aqueduct’s case shows. In fact, the kind of legal institute (here the stock company) is not neutral, but on the contrary, it defines goals and business policies, “independently” of the owner. Following an inductive approach in Apulia region, effectively, we see a growing of tariffs and a block of services’ supply for users with payments in arrears, while the water human right sanctioned by the UN in 2010 is not guaranteed.

The industrial tomato in Italy: focal points and territorial impacts referring to Capitanata (Apulia). The industrial tomato is a very interesting market-oriented crop at least for four geo-economic reasons: the multiscalar organization of processing industry, business’s strategy and decision power; the spread of crops; the evolution of production and processing way; the agricultural typology and its territorial influence. The aim of this research on one side is to identify and analyse the focal points and territorial impacts produced by neoliberal agricultural policies, on other side it is to propose an “alternative” agrofood model. The Capitanata’s case confirms the industrial production’s typical issues: irrigation, artificial fertilizers and pesticides, hybrid seeds, irregular job. These ones produce some serious territorial impacts (as water exploitation, qualitative degradation of waters and soils, reduction of biodiversity and labour exploitation) that are responsible for ecological impoverishment and increasing of environmental and social vulnerability. The Apulia case shows also a lack of endogenous processing firms and, thus, a farmer’s dependence on external firms. This situation is worsening because of oppressive behaviours and speculative policies by processing industry, in addition to liberalisation’s advancing. The study has been developed by a descriptive and interpretative approach based on observation of tomato industry by scientific literature, institutional reports, newspapers and statistical data (V and VI agricultural census included).

SUSTAINABLE TERRITORIAL PLANNING INVOLVING THE PARTICIPATION OF INHABITANTS IN ECUADOR AND QUITO. This paper presents a research in the field focused on participation planning policies realized in Ecuador and specifically in the Metropolitan District of Quito. The aim is to evaluate and verify whether the realized planning has involved the participation of and has been developed with inhabitants, or if it is more or less a persuasive representation. The attention is on the process and power relations to recognize and explicate the subtended political choices, especially to correlate problems to key elements of sustainable territorial planning (inequality, ecological disequilibrium, social tensions and conflicts). The case study shows that participation planning is basically produced and legitimated by institutional-politic initiatives, both at the national and urban scales, with contradictions between symbolic and material fields, and between form and substance. Finally, we think that participation planning assumes some characteristics of a propagandistic initiative and seems functional in regard to the consolidation of existent power’s relations (historically determined by colonization, capitalism and neoliberalism).

Water European policy: possible scenarios by comparison. This paper analyses and compares “The Blueprint to Safeguard Europe's Water Resources” by EC, European Commission (November 2012), and the “Memorandum sur la Politique Européenne de l’Eau” by IERPE, Institut Européen de Recherche sur la Politique de l’Eau (December 2013). The aims are: to define and specify the conceptual and ideological matrix at the base of the two proposals; to identify the possible effects and describe the future scenarios concerning the population-resource relation (referring to the water accessibility and use’s conditions) and the sovereignty, as well as the potential social tensions and conflicts. By a methodological point of view, we have used a paradigmatic and deconstructionist approach. This last is specifically used for the analysis of the Blueprint in order to understand the vision and values accepted by the EC, because they are not manifested. At this regard, we have examined lexicon, concepts, assumptions and interpretative categories; typologies and nature of the information used, considering also observation and analysis’ spatial scales.

A GEOGRAPHICAL APPROACH TO A SUSTAINABLE TERRITORIAL PLANNING. This paper explores an approach to territorial planning from a purely geographical perspective, with the idea to approach the top-down planning concept, similarly as if it were presented “bottom-up”. The supporting thesis is that the geographical approaches (such as those proposed by the different addresses of this discipline) have the conceptual, interpretative and methodological tools to overcome, via a holistic and systemic outlook, the hierarchical and pyramidal formulation. Process, distribution and power relations are identified to recognize and explicate the subtended political choices, to get to the heart of problems. Building the foundations to develop a plan “with” the inhabitants, which are the communities that live in the place, and not solely “for” them. Another aim of this paper is to try to offer interpretative keys to “read” and/or evaluate and/or elaborate on participating planning policies (on different spatial scale levels) for a sustainable and ecological equilibrated government of territory.

In this paper we demonstrate that in economic systems characterised by social structures founded on reciprocal trust and interpersonal relations, water is a common good. In order to verify this, we refer to an economy of reciprocity practiced by some indigenous communities of the Bolivian Andes. We compare water management in these communities with another case of collective provision of water services now present and functioning in some areas of the Italian Alps and Apennines. In the examined case studies, we find that any kind of water property regime other than that the indigenous communities practice represents not only an inefficient system of management of the resource but also a reduction in relational goods. In both cases, water is a resource to exploit, and also a means to strengthen the interpersonal relations and the identity of the community.

La geografia del Salento rischia di essere stravolta dalla modalità di gestione della cosiddetta “emergenza xylella. La portata sostanziale, spaziale e temporale di tali misure, nonché le ombre e le apparenti contraddizioni alla base della “emergenza xylella” hanno spinto ad esplorare i meandri di questa vicenda e, in particolare, la frontiera fra realtà e rappresentazione per cercare di leggere e interpretare il fenomeno in questione che, lungi dall’essere esclusivamente “biologico”, sembra anche, se non essenzialmente, socio-politico’. Nel testo: 1. La xyella fastidiosa e il disseccamento degli ulivi 2. I corti circuiti fra scienza, informazione e politica 3. Le ombre sulla diffusione del batterio 4. La costruzione politica della “emergenza xylella” 5. Riflessioni sulla rappresentazione dell’emergenza e sulla metodologia di gestione del problema