A View from Within: Concluding Remarks

A look into the future of Italy’s water governance needs a systematic stocktake of the Country’s strengths and weak spots. Although the reading of this volume may leave the impression that the latter are more than the former, a somewhat positive evolution of water management in many respects cannot be denied. The legal and policy landscape has changed a lot since the inception of the new millennium, and some reforms are still too young to be appropriately evaluated. Moreover, such an assessment requires that a multidisciplinary perspective be taken, so as to account for a complex reality where the uses, purposes, actors and impacts relating to water are varied. In this sense, these brief concluding remarks are also meta-observations, that is, observations on how water-related issues are studied now or would be studied best. In addition to recapping the most salient points of the analyses carried out in the book chapters, some final hints on the way forward are outlined.