Water Management and Protection in Italy

In this chapter, the authors rethinks the evolution of water management and protection in Italy by focusing on the institutional setting. They investigate how the innovative provisions and tools contained in the Water Framework Directive (WFD). 2000/60/EC4 have affected the national legislative and institutional framework and whether the implementation phase has endorsed a more open, accountable, effective and coherent system, or in other terms, a sustainable institutional system capable of assuring a sustainable use of water. The implementation of the European union (EU) guidelines and measures has proven to be problematic in the Italian water management and protection context. As the study shows, this critical and still on-going reform process is partly due to the general institutional resistance to change and to the strong influence of political actors whose interests have not been aligned with the strategy envisaged by the Directive, against a fragmented and conflictual legislative background. Keywords:European union (EU); institutional framework; Italy; Water Framework Directive (WFD); water management