Hydropower Exploitation in the Piave River Basin (Italian Eastern Alps)

Abstract

Renewable energies have been one of the main driving forces of European landscape change in the last ten years. Despite its acknowledged contribution to sustainable development, ‘renewable’ is not ipso facto ‘sustainable’: on the contrary renewable energies can have negative impacts and create both environmental and social conflicts. Landscape is often at the heart of these conflicts, both as an asset to protect and as a tool for use in debate. This situation leads us to reflect on the question of ‘landscapes of energy’. This paper investigates the relationships between energy production and the territory, using landscape as a tool for a critical review of past and current hydropower exploitation in the Piave river basin, in the Italian Eastern Alps. Regional policies and local practices related with the development of small hydropower plants are analysed from the point of view of the strategies, values and meanings expressed by the different stakeholders. The analysis reveals various weaknesses of the policies and the practices that undermine the objective of integrating energy into the landscape.