An overview of the River Contract tool: new aims in planning and protected areas issues

The River Contract, as a new negotiated process, even if it is not yet clearly placed in the context of spatial planning tools, can play an important role in the improvement phases of territorial governance policies. River networks, which often cross urban spaces, can certainly be considered places of choice for the contemporary experimentation of territorial and local strategies. This paper analyses the different possibilities of acting on natural infrastructures, through the analysis of cases carried out in various European countries. This investigation led to the definition of recurring advantages and disadvantages in river planning application, expecially referring to the Italian national context for the Landscape Plan, a special planning tool for landscape issues, included waterways. Despite the disadvantages, the River Contract represents a concrete possibility of achieving landscape aims: this process, acting at different scales of intervention, could contribute to solving the complex system of relations between all the components involved.