Profili di vulnerabilità territoriale

Many of the territories of Central Italy affected by the seismic sequence of 2016 and 2017 can be defined "inner areas", that is to say areas, mainly hilly and mountainous, which are far from urban centres and essential citizenship services, with problems related to internal mobility and accessibility. These territories since the post-war years, have been affected by an increasing marginality of the productive sectors, feeding various forms of social and cultural needs. Though these areas have a common genesis that allow to identify them as a category, they present peculiar and specific declinations of the conditions of fragility, due to very different dynamics and contexts, (as well highlighted by the Strategy for Inner Areas – a specific national program promoted by the Italian Minister of Territorial Cohesion). In order to correctly outline relaunch hypotheses, capable of linking the various resources of the Rieti inner area, in an experimental, creative and innovative key, this research has investigated specific profiles of territorial vulnerability, through a critical analysis of available data and markers. In particular, it emerged that the decrease of territorial presidium - understood as the presence, care and constant maintenance of settlements and infrastructures - is a phenomenon that amplifies the existing degradation processes, decreases the attractiveness of the territory, increases seismic vulnerability and hydrogeological risk. This represent a problem not only for the affected areas, but also for those located downstream. The high Reatino, thanks to its different naturalistic and landscape resources, offers a good tourist vocation. However, the "different tourisms" do not exploit the network and do not supply chain strategies. The tourist offer is fragmented, making the individual operators in the sector vulnerable and unable to cope with the changes caused by the seismic event. The problem of the fragmentation of the tourist offer is probably connected to a low awareness of the territorial identity by the local community, which implies a weak recognition from the outside. An unclear territorial image is an aspect of vulnerability because when a negative narration - such as the one deriving from the seismic event – arrives, this overwhelmingly replaces the first one.