Water under control in the Anthropocene Era. Human footprint in the land reclamation experience in Italy

The analysis of statistical data over the Anthropocene Era has made possible to chronologically reconstruct the gradual reduction/transformation of wetlands into cultivable lands in the Italian plains. Particularly relevant are the policies adopted by the new Italian State after its unification in 1861 with regard to the management of waters. It has been examined the evolution of the concept of land reclamation, which gradually came to include draining, hygienic, agrarian and environmental factors. Over many centuries new country areas were created, two fifths of them located below sea level. Both the State and landowners invested capital in a project that was not only meant to sustain private interest but that also met public needs. Since 1882 (when the Baccarini law was passed) the subject of the ???bonifica igienica??? began to be discussed in Italy. This concerned one sixteenth of the total surface of the country, affected by malaria. New livelihoods substituted those of the past: some economies based, for instance, on the harvesting of the marshes??? products or on the common use of marginal lands disappeared. But landscape and environment are today considered as important common goods.