Water–Energy: Institutional Frameworks in Rural Areas and the Development of Best Practices

Abstract (English)

Reflecting on water in Molise today offers a unique lens through which to explore relationships with territory, landscape, development policies, and governance. This study examines how water serves not only as a resource and object but also as an agent within the social, political, and environmental dynamics of the region—particularly through the controversial hydroelectric project Pizzone II in the Volturno Valley. The landscape shaped by the artificial lakes of Castel San Vincenzo and Montagna Spaccata becomes a site where notions of resource, citizenship, and governance converge and conflict.
The project, currently under evaluation by Italy’s Ministry of Environment and Energy Security, has catalyzed significant civic engagement, with over 500 documents submitted and a grassroots coordination of roughly 150 people opposing the initiative. The resistance sheds light on divergent visions of development: one driven by national energy transition goals and infrastructural expansion; the other rooted in a cultural landscape defined by eco-tourism and local identity.
The research, conducted as part of a doctoral study at the University of Molise, adopts an ethnographic and landscape-based approach. It frames water as both a resource—from the perspective of hydroelectric utility—and a common, understood as the synthesis of social and political relationships involving water. These dual readings are analyzed through the lens of waterscapes and the concept of landscape as defined by the Italian Cultural Heritage Code: the expressive territory shaped by natural and human factors.
Governance emerges as a central axis in the study, understood not solely as state control but as a negotiation among multiple actors, including public institutions, private companies, and civil society. However, the Molise Region’s prevailing approach to water governance—framing it narrowly as a technical and infrastructural matter—isolates water from its social and environmental dimensions.
By following the trajectory of Pizzone II and the historical and emotional significance of the region’s lakes, this research underscores how development projects engage with and often disrupt local ecologies and communities. Ultimately, the study argues that the future of Molise’s landscape—and of its civic and ecological identity—depends on the capacity to recognize and integrate diverse narratives, including those that emerge from grassroots resistance. The evolving governance of water in Molise serves as both a mirror and a battleground for broader questions of sustainability, identity, and power in contemporary territorial transformations.