Conflitti d'acqua e di uomini nel bacino del Tagliamento: l'utilità di un approccio integrato tra geografia umana e fisica

This paper comes from a collaboration involving three PhD students of the Department of Geography, University of Padua. The main aims are i) to summarize the results emerged during the 12th European Seminar on Geography of Water (Udine, 28 June - 9 July 2009) within the working group dedicated to Tagliamento river basin; ii) to test a multidisciplinary approach that joins physical and human geography. After a physical and administrative overview of the area, the paper focuses on conflicts between different uses of basin resources (hydropower production, irrigation, industrial use of water, gravel extraction, tourism, recreational activities), and with the risk management related to the Tagliamento. Some general suggestions concerning feasible solutions to the conflicts has been pointed out: i.e. the need to increase local community involvement in public choices, coupled to a reinforcement of a catchment scale vision of the problems. The topics are too vast and complex to be entirely detailed here; but, the analysis has highlighted the potentialities of a successful interdisciplinary collaboration dealing with an issue that requires complementary skills, methods and approaches.