Rethinking water management through a long-term sustainable and holistic strategy Valorizing UNESCO sites in Italy and Germany

Abstract

This work aims to demonstrate that, as the environment represents the biggest challenge of our century, more studies and investments on that topic should be undertaken as soon as possible. This awareness arises not only from the desire to preserve our world but also from the need to develop our society more sustainably, promoting a change for many realities. After an introductive explanation of the environment’s illness on a global level, the work will focus on one potential element that might improve this transformation: water. Even if a lot has been written on this liquid, there is still not a concrete holistic vision that considers all the different facets of its rich potential for the economy, as well as for culture and society. Such a vision would allow us to improve our humanistic, scientific, and international realities with knowledge and tools available today, but merely a few years ago still underestimated. This analysis will deal with three main arguments that concern a reborn use of water regarding arts, culture, tourism, and education firstly, politics, finance, economics, and technology secondly and society thirdly. This reflection will show how many benefits and positive externalities such a revaluation of water-related potential would bring for everyone. This point of view will be reinforced before with a general overview, comparing nine Italian and German UNESCO sites that have to do with water and then with two other cases that make water their main feature for being part of the UNESCO heritage, that are Venice and Augsburg. The aim is to evaluate these two different systems, considering the main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to water use. These assumptions will clearly reaffirm the importance of water in this century, especially for Europe that dreams to be a worldwide protagonist in the environmental challenge, while the USA and China are interested in other areas almost unrelated to sustainability. In the end, more ideas and projects will be proposed to show how many possibilities could be explored in the incoming future.