“Upper Adda” River Contract

GoApply - Multidimensional Governance of Climate Change Adaptation in Policy Making and Practice

WP2 Advancing the mainstreaming of climate adaptation policies and measures

Case study reports on the mainstreaming of climate adaptation Case Study Report: Italy “Upper Adda” River Contract

Fondazione Lombardia per l’Ambiente (Lombardy Foundation for the Environment)

Final Report Milano, October 2018

This project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg Alpine Space programme

1. Brief Summary of the Case Study River Contracts are territorial governance schemes, originated usually from a spontaneous (though regulated by law) initiative of diverse actors, both private and public. The actors should constitute a representative range of the community living and working in the territory of a specific river basin. In the present report, we analyse specifically the case of Upper Adda Valley River Contract (UARC or RC, in short).

Like most of River Contracts, the Upper Adda RC has general goals of environmental protection and territorial sustainable development (see next sections for details), thus making it a most appropriate mean for climate adaptation at local scale. Also, it involves several local (municipalities) and intermediate (mountain communities) public administrations, as well as the Regional administration and the provincial one1, making it an interesting case in terms of multilevel governance.

The process of UARC began in December 2014. Since the beginning the framework documents mentioned climate adaptation as a necessity and a priority. Approval of the first Action Plan is due December 2018 and the content is undisclosed at the time of writing this report. Several measures to be included in the plan are likely to be classifiable as “adaptation”. Nevertheless, there is no formal “adaptation plan” and no climate scenario data have been directly considered during the design of the Plan, nor during the RC process as a whole.

a. Key elements Success factors:

• Evidence of impacts pushes the topic as a priority (5, 6) • Engagement of several local administrations, also at various levels (2, 3, 5) • Good level of awareness and capacity in environmental protection and spatial planning (6, 5) • Consolidated saliency of the topic in key documents (2, 5, 6) • Consolidated governance scheme (River Contract) (3, 2) • Consolidated participated process (EASW process, Mountain Community) (5, 6)

Barriers:

• Lack of dedicated resources (7) • Lack of specific expertise on climate change and climate adaptation (5) • Lack of obligation (especially for private actors) in the enforcement of the measures (3, 6) • Fragmentation and complexity of the roles and competences involved (4, 2)

1 Italy has an administrative structure based on three levels: State (NUTS0), Regions (NUTS2; e.g. Lombardia), Provinces (NUTS3; e.g. Province of Lecco, Metropolitan City of Milan). 2

Barrier categories (Biesbroek et al. 2011)

1 Conflicting Timescales 2 Substantive, Strategic and Institutional Uncertainty 3 Institutional Crowdedness and Institutional Voids 4 Fragmentation 5 Lack of Awareness and Communication 6 Motives and Willingness to Act 7 Resources

b. Lessons learnt In the present case, the saliency of adaptation to climate change as a topic appears to be relatively high. Further enquiring, though, reveal that “adaptation” is considered, in this case, simply as an additional environmental concern, adding up to more “traditional” stressors (e.g. pollution, over-exploitation, natural hazards), but it’s not seen as an articulated issue that requires dedicated attention, policies, resources, etc. Possibly, the transition from “concern about climate change” to the application of climate adaptation as a discipline or an established methodological approach is hampered by the chronic lack of resources, which at this local level does not allow to even consider setting up dedicated hard structures or policies.

It can be inferred that a non-formalized approach to climate adaptation can get through the barriers of institutional inertia and resistance of political commitment easier than the enforcement of an top-down formal adaptation strategy, yet the approach runs the risk of incurring in a lack of overall vision, with undesired chance of “maladaptation”, inconsistency between sectors and possibly lack of commitment for dedicated additional funding.

The recognition of climate change as a reason of concern, or even the recognition of impacts from climate change do not ensure per se the integration of a coherent adaptation logic in current sectoral policies: a comprehensive climate adaptation policy requires a more complete methodological approach.

In fact, motivation and willingness to adapt coming only from the awareness of individuals involved in the policy-making processes may lead to a form of adaptation that has been referred to as “accidental”, “non- formalized”, “piggybacking”. This form of adaptation, although it is still able to lead to constructive effects and should be probably be considered positively, presents higher risk of incoherency; surely, in such case coherency of the actions versus an overall adaptation logic cannot be enforced through the mechanism of compliance to a strategy.

A complex multilevel governance scheme, involving a regional administration, intermediate ones and municipalities can enforce in turn different levels of monitoring and evaluation instruments; yet, it multiplies the bureaucracy and the fatigue in the policy-making process and produces institutional crowdedness.

A robust territorial awareness (in the present case, the Valtellina major disaster in 1987 had probably a strong influence on it) increases the motivation, the willingness and the pressure of the public over the political level. In turn, the case has clearly shown a weakness of the reference documents, such as the National Adaptation Strategy, as well as the Regional one, indicating either a lack of commitment or an inability in fostering the documents and the policies that they represent toward the different administrative levels and the larger public.

c. Recommendation for transferability

The setup of a River Contract requires that the local laws and regulations allow the development of spontaneous agreements between actors in a community, with the goals of territorial governance. Nevertheless, River Contracts are a consolidated experience all over Europe since long time (late ‘90s).

Also, the process is better developed with the presence of a main agent or coordinator, generally trusted and with capacity of dealing with a variety of subjects on a territory, who could act as catalyser and a facilitator (in the UARC case, the Mountain Community of Valtellina – Sondrio).

2. Section I – Characterization of the Case Study and its context A characterization of the territory.

Adda is 313 km long river, from its source to the outlet in the Po river. The river is divided in two sections, one from the source and to the inlet into the Lake of Como; the second one from the same lake down to the Po river. Adda is the main river of the Province of Sondrio and the Valtellina territory and one of the main in Lombardy. The entire course of the river falls into the region of Lombardy: it is the longest (and second as for volumes) tributary of the Po river. The portion of river interested by the River Contract is the one contained within the Province of Sondrio, above the Lake of Como. The extension of the river basin is about 7.927 km2 (94% in Italy, 6% in Switzerland). The territory comprises several Protected Areas (Parco Nazionale dello Stelvio, Parco Regionale delle Orobie Valtellinesi, 7 Natural Reserves, 3 Local Inter- municipal Parks (PLIS); plus, additional 41.700 hectares of Natura 2000 sites.

There are 77 municipalities in the Province of Sondrio, the territory of which matches almost completely that of the Upper Adda river basin. Main towns and cities are Sondrio (over 21.000 inhabitants), Morbegno (over 12.000), Tirano (over 9.000), Chiavenna, Livigno, Bormio.

The economy of the territory is mainly driven by tourism, especially winter skiing tourism. Very relevant activities are the numerous hydroelectric powerplants and the related system of dams, the industry of extraction from the riverbed. Finally, agriculture has also a very important role in the area, hosting a high- quality wine district.

Main elements of pressure in the area are the critical level of exploitation of the river and its catchment: extraction industry, power generation and a diffused presence of small factories and workshops along the river are the key elements. Moreover, climate change appears to have strong impacts on permafrost thawing and on the gravitational hazard in the surrounding mountain areas.

In July 1987, Valtellina was struck by a major disastrous event of enormous magnitude. After very heavy precipitations, landslides and floods combined killed 53 people, thousands more needed to be evacuated and several town, roads and bridges had been destroyed. The events are still to this day very much impressed in the memory of local communities.

The aftermath of the event changed drastically the way of living the territory, of planning it and of managing the river. A special law developed and approved after the event, called in fact “Valtellina law” brought great investments and funds on the territory, to ameliorate its safety, with a considerable improvement in the safety level.

Governance Framework

A River contract is, on a general level, a spontaneous initiative and an agreement stipulated between institutional actors and subjects from the civil society and the business community, with the common aim of protecting and restoring positive conditions of a river and the surrounding valley and communities. All

River Contracts are developed under the monitor of the Regional Administration; in Lombardy, some RCs are coordinated directly by the Regional administration (through its agency ERSAF), whereas some are coordinated at the local level (UARC being one of the latter’s).

The river, as an ecologic entity, is the obvious focus of the initiative and the initiative has also the purpose of offering an organized interface for the local community to the extreme fragmentation of competences over the entity “river” itself. In point of fact, the “water” sector in Italy presents a proliferation of regulatory measures, diffusedly considered as excessive: up to 150 norms can be counted for the sector, in the form of laws, resolutions, decrees, directives and many others from different governance levels, ministries and other entities. Fragmentation can be observed as well in the plurality of bodies sharing the competence on the subject. Consequently, every attempt to a common coordinated management of the river and its territory requires a formalization of the cooperation among different public bodies, by the mean of specific agreements or protocols. In this regard, the River Contract may act as a facilitator for the purpose.

Table 1 in Section II.d presents synthetically the main managing entities operating over the Adda river basin report the competences and main regulations for each.

At present, the River Contract “Upper Adda Valley” involves 62 partners, both public and private. Among these, we can mention Mountain community2 of Valtellina Sondrio (coordinator of the River Contract); Regional administration of Lombardy; Province administration of Sondrio; ARPA (regional agency for environment protection); ERSAF (regional agency for agriculture and forest development); Chamber of Commerce; “Orobie Valtellinesi” Regional Park; Mountain communities of Valtellina Tirano, Valtellina Morbegno and Alta Valtellina; Several Municipalities (including Sondrio, main city of the area); A2A (energy provider & water management company); CAI (Alpine Club of Italy) and local sport associations; Farmers’ association, woodland exploitation association; Professional associations (architects, engineers, etc.); Legambiente, WWF (environmental protection associations).

River Contracts are considered among the possible instruments of implementation of climate adaptation measures by some main policy instruments and funding schemes (e.g. Rural Development Plan 2014-2020).

The process of “Upper Adda Valley” River Contract

The process of River Contract “Upper Adda Valley” has been initiated in December 2014 and led in June 2015 to the publication of a Manifest, a declaration of intents in which all the signatories agreed on some general premises, a concise and broad analyses of the status quo, a number of general level goals and plan of action, the constitution of a steering committee and a structure for the organization. The initiator and coordinator of the initiative is the Mountain Community of Valtellina - Sondrio.

The River Contract has developed a strategic medium-to-long term plan and more recently an action plan (due for approval by the end of December 2018). The document plans the actions within the Contract for the next 3 years. After the approval, the Action Plan needs to be formalized into a Framework Agreement valid at the level of the Regional administration (ex lege L.241/1990).

The Manifest of Intents of the UARC states its general goals:

- Ensure water quality (in the terms of the EU “Water” directive) - Preventing land grabbing

2 A Mountain Community is a local territorial body, established by the italian law, in the form of an association of municipalities, obligatory and instituted by the regional level. Its mission and role are the valorisation of the territory, the management of own functions and aggregated functions delegated by municipalities. 5

- Ensure safety from hydraulic risk - Development of green infrastructures - Sustainable fruition, responsible tourism, slow mobility - Sustainable Forest management of the surrounding areas - Landscape valorisation - Cultural valorisation

Entry points analysis

UARC is a case of community level development and project, in which the actors, mainly by actively applying for a qualified technical and scientific support, try to integrate adaptation and risk mitigation aspects into local measures and implemented actions for a common territory. The UARC lacks an overall adaptation strategy and yet aims to the coordination of a coherent, sustainable and environmentally sound local (aggregation of municipalities) development.

The case on a timeline

• Directive 2000/60/EC on establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy • Directive 2003/4/EC on public access to environmental information • Directive 2003/35/EC providing for public participation in respect of the drawing up of certain plans and programmes relating to the environment • Regional law 26/2003 identifies River Contract as participated development processes, useful for requalification of river basins • Directive 2007/60/EC on the assessment and management of flood risks • Decree “Collegato Ambientale” (Environmental Annex), 2016: enforces the recognition (as per state law D.Lgs 152/2006) of River Contracts as normative instruments (art. 68-bis): the recognition is a key passage for the development of River Contracts and for the requalification of river basins in general. Particularly, the decree strengthens the contribution of River Contracts to the definition and implementation of spatial planning instruments at the level of districts, hydrologic catchments and subcatchments”; River Contracts are therefore no longer only voluntary agreements among actors but are recognized by the legislator and the government as official policy instruments.

UARC Action Plan UARC Strategic 2018? Paris & Objectives Marrakesh RAP COP: the Lombardy 2017 role of RCs in CCA 2016 UARC Manifest of Intents 2015-16 RAS 2015 Regional law on Lombardy “River Contracts” 26/03 2014

2003

3. Section II – Analysis of the explored dimensions

a. II.1 – Mainstreaming: Saliency The following documentation has been screened for direct references to climate adaptation topics.

These documents make explicit reference to climate change and climate adaptation

• Manifest of Intents • 4 Reports of onsite “stakeholders” surveys • Position paper “Verso un Contratto di Fiume dell'alto bacino imbrifero del fiume Adda” (Towards a River Contract for the Upper Basin of Adda river) for the Assembly of the National Board of River Contracts • Report on Knowledge base and analysis for the UARC • Report European Awareness Scenario Workshop EASW for the UARC • Strategic Framework Synthesis – UARC (Quadro di sintesi Strategico) • Expert groups Reports (Theme 1 – Water quality and quality of the river ecosystem; Theme 2 – Hydraulic and geomorphologic risk; Theme 3 – Landscape, Spatial planning, fruition and economic development of the river territory)

These documents do not make explicit reference to climate change or climate adaptation

• Report of the 1st Technical Institutional Committee • Report of the 2nd Technical Institutional Committee • Strategic Objectives Framework document (Quadro Sinottico obiettivi CdF) • 4 Thematic Objectives sheets CC and CCA are mentioned in several documents, particularly the recommendation of the Expert Groups which support and consult the assembly of the Contract.

Main statements

The Manifest of Intents states: “the necessity for launching the River Contract of Upper Adda River Basin is also related to the worsening of critical situations, also as a consequence of the current climate change phenomenon and to the levels of soil consumption.”

“For such complex themes, the Mountain Community “Valtellina di Sondrio” considers as a priority a strategic planning of the territory, integrated and based on shared agreements, for its protection and valorisation. At present, River Contracts are the main policy instruments recognized by the national level for this purpose. Besides those themes, the developing River Contract will allow to manage in the most efficient way also the issues related to the worsening of critical conditions, because of the changing climate, the level of water consumption and the impermeabilization of the soil.”

“Expert groups Reports” Theme 1 - Water quality and river ecosystem

“There is evidence of a worrisome trend of debris and sediment accumulating in the reservoirs and flowing into the river, due to increased erosion […] generated by climate change”

Theme 2 – Hydraulic and geomorphologic risk

“Presently, climate change, in particular the retreat of glaciers, the thawing of permafrost and the increase in extreme meteorogical events, short but very strong, are endangering the hydrogeologic equilibrium, generating local problems of instability and debris management. Hydrogeologic instability is an issue of particular interest in this territory” (note: the author refers here at the disastrous hydrogeologic events, occurred in the Valtellina area in July 1987).

Theme 3 – Landscape, Spatial planning, fruition and economic development of the river territory

Risk perception factors: Climate Change

• Delayed times in political decisions regarding the implementation of actions and investment to cope and adapt to climate change • Difficulties in the management of events related to climate change • Glaciers withdrawing • Glaciers disintegration • Foreseen increase in extreme weather events • Tropicalization • Absence of expansion sites to modulate hydraulic overflows

“Report on Knowledge base and analysis for the UARC”

Strenght-Weakness analysis of the territory: climate change

Strong points Weak points High altitude reservoirs to be utilized for Glacier withdrawing (loss of artificial snow making and water accumulation capacity) management The valley has a richness of environments The morphology of the valley makes it as for altitudes and exposition of the severely exposed to the intensification of slopes, which makes it more resilient extreme weather events Hydro-power exploitation and potential Mass movements, debris flow are strong has generated in the years high criticalities, especially in the upper part employment rates and clean energy of the valley Deregulated inert extraction can cause serious problems in the lower areas

Conclusions

Climate change and adaptation are explicitly a concern for the territory and the River Contract as an instrument. The issue is abundantly mentioned, and some specific impacts have been identified, although not quantified in the available documents. The objectives seem to reflect this attention for the topic, as well as the actions. Also, no specific climate analysis for the area is available. Objectives and actions thus do

not have an explicit purpose for climate adaptation, although still positive for adaptation (environmental protection and sustainable development).

Yet, no framework policy documents, such as Regional or National Strategies, are practically acknowledged (although RAS Lombardy is mentioned): UARC acknowledges and refers to the RAS Lombardy document, but it does not descend from it, neither from a normative point of view, nor politically. Also, no financial instruments for climate adaptation identified. The action for climate adaptation within the UARC case study does not develop in the framework of a broader scheme, showing a sever gap or perhaps the lack of a consolidated national or regional strategy. Climate change is acknowledged as a reason of concern, but climate adaptation is not considered (probably not perceived) as a whole methodologic approach to the issue.

b. II.2 – Mainstreaming: Coherency The Strategic Plan of the UARC includes four main lines of action:

1. Water, marginal areas, River environment 2. Spatial planning, management, knowledge 3. Use and economic development 4. Landscape and environmental education

Within these four lines, several actions are proposed and characterized, although not in details at present. Some of the actions appear particularly fitting for climate adaptation on the local scale. Yet, there is no structured impact assessment or strategic setting against which to check the coherency of the actions. Also, there is no projection of the actions in the long period, to check their validity against future scenarios.

As previously stated, UARC acknowledges and refers to the RAS Lombardy document, but it does not descend from it, neither from a normative point of view, nor politically. Therefore, and obviously, RAS Lombardy was not used as a reference document to develop coherent objectives and measures in the UARC.

Line of Action 1 includes actions on the regulation of flows (minimum flow), water conflict resolution and management of reservoirs for power production versus human or agricultural use. Also, actions for hydraulic risk reduction.

Line of action 2 includes governance measures to enhance coordination, simplification and to strengthen territorial planning and management. Also, measures of knowledge and information management among actors and institution involved in the RC.

Line of action 3 includes measures for sustainable tourism, avoiding further impermeabilization of the soil, diversification of tourism opportunity (alternatives to winter ski tourism).

Line of action 4 is particularly dedicated to the valorisation and protection of landscapes in the area, but also to environmental education.

The actions that are due to be implemented by the UARC are subject of several levels of monitoring and evaluation: all the actions originally contained in a source plan or programme, either Regional or Municipal, or even National, are subject to the M&E system of said source plan/programme. In addition, the Regional Government exert a monitoring action over the River Contract itself and a specific one on the implementation of the Action Plan. Finally, actions which require SEA processes will likely be requested to check their coherency to RAS Lombardy.

In the original intention of the Regional Administration, River Contracts should have received a financial support, for funding special measures developed within the Contracts. Obviously, this also worked as a incentive for local actors to start the initiatives on their own territories. Due to lack of dedicated resources, though, at least in the case of UARC, no financial support is granted to the plan. The Region has thus required for the actions presented in the Action Plan to be already financially covered, in order to be approved. This is mentioned by some interviewees as a signal of ambiguity from the side of the Regional Administration. The action must be covered with either funds (the identification of a valid source of funding suffices) or inherent manpower. Therefore, the current Action Plan contains mainly measures already foreseen in municipal or regional spatial plans.

Conclusions

The coherency of the objectives and the actions with a climate adaptation logic, when applicable, seem to descend from the knowledge, awareness and capacity of the experts involved or of the officers in the administrations (most references to climate change and recommendation for adaptation measures are found in the Expert Groups reports).

In this regard, the Case Study shows that although “mainstreaming” can be efficiently obtained through expert knowledge, the lack of a multi-level integrated action (possibly in the form of an overall strategy) leaves coherency between overall policies both at different level or at the same, to be gained in a “accidental” way, rather than through the implementation of a strategy with clear, consistent goals.

On the other hand, “mainstreaming” the specific and current sectoral policies of the local administration allows that several instruments can be used to enforce coherency with an adaptation strategy, given that an overall strategy was in place: as shown in the present case, a complex multilevel governance scheme, involving a regional administration, intermediate ones and municipalities can enforce in turn different levels of monitoring and evaluation instruments.

c. II.3 – Mainstreaming: Awareness / Capacity In the analysis of the Case Study it was possible to interview subjects from two main groups: administration officers and technical or scientific experts.

Of the latter, it can be said that no people specialists in climate change or climate adaptation had been involved, but almost all experts have brought climate-related recommendations in the Expert Groups reports, identifying well, although in a qualitative way, impacts and climatic factors for the area.

On the other hand, the officers of the Mountain Community that it was possible to interview showed a good level of awareness about the topic of climate change and on the possible climate impacts that can be observed in the area. In this case too, though, there are no specific competences on the matter of climate scenarios.

Interviews showed a general lack of awareness and knowledge about the existence, even less about the contents, of the Regional Adaptation Strategy or the Document of Action from Lombardy. The same can be said about the National level or the European level documents. In this regard, the main sources of information about climate change are the general media, the knowledge brought in by the experts involved in the process and conference and similar dissemination activities.

In the area, 11 Municipalities are signatories of the Covenant of Mayors, of which 9 adhered in 2015, although only one has committed to adaptation objectives (signed in 2016).

If we consider the UARC from the points of view of governance and planning, both vertical (regional, provincial, municipal, private levels involved) and horizontal (multi-sectoral, cross-sectoral issues to coordinate) and of environmental protection and valorisation, it should be observed that the subjects involved show a remarkable capacity and awareness, regardless the lack of specific references to climate adaptation.

The characterization of the possible climate-driven impacts on the territory was particularly interesting in the case study. Hydrogeologic instability and micro-landslides due to permafrost thawing and the increase in the sediment and solid transport in the river (including the potential impact on hydro-power stations and reservoirs) are very specific impacts, hardly mentioned at the level of the RAS Lombardy, of which the territory appears to be in turn very well aware.

Conclusions

Visible impacts and a general and long consolidated territorial awareness appear to be positive factors in improving the level of awareness about new environmental and development issues. In the present Case Study, awareness and capacity do not appear to be limiting factors in the mainstreaming process. The River Contract utilized modern instruments of governance and coordination too (e.g. EASW method) and readily developed objectives on natured-based solutions, sustainability and economic diversification, when dealing with the issues of environmental protection and territorial development. In the present case, the lack of awareness of local administrator and officers about upper level policy instruments on climate change and adaptation appears to say more about the weakness of the national and regional policy documents themselves (not properly fostered, promoted, disseminated by the authors), than about the scarce knowledge of the local actors.

d. II.4 – Horizontal Governance: Intra-, Inter-institutional and Broader The range of stakeholders involved in the UARC varies from at least three different institutional levels (regional, provincial, municipal), to the business community (energy sector, mining and extraction sector), to civil society (many sport, leisure, environmentalist associations). The Mountain Community of Sondrio appears to show a strong attention to the participated process. In 2016, it organized a EASW (European Awareness Scenario Workshop) with the purpose of “design a model for sustainable development, to be defined the Strategic Document” of the River Contract. Periodically, it arranges “study” field trips along the river to which all the stakeholders are invited. A participated process appears to be particularly important, as (at least for the moment) the River Contract produces no legal obligation for action for the signatories, only a moral obligation. In fact, after the preparation of the draft Action Plan, the implementation instrument of the River Contract, in early 2018, some major private partners (energy sector mainly) have pulled out from the agreement, not signing the draft, although they had formally sustained the initiative from the beginning. UARC is a local initiative, acknowledged and supported by upper administrative levels. Yet, local levels experienced setbacks due to (in their opinion) ambiguity in decisions from upper levels (e.g. a clear stance about the necessity of a transition from “traditional winter tourism” towards diversified and more sustainable forms of tourism and yet several exceptions and waivers for further development of “ski”- related premises and economies). The interviewees expressed several times a strong need for re-designing the system of roles and competences, as well as the corpus of regulations and laws related to the management of the river. Some have brought up the example of the Regional Park of Mincio River, who pursued a similar initiative, but had a dedicated managing structure already in place to organize and handle the whole process. Table 1 shows the plethora of subjects and related regulations and laws that in some way insist on the management of the river as a resource and an ecological body.

Table 1: Actors, institutional roles and reference regulations concerning the water management sector in Italy (not to be considered exhaustive)

Actor Institutional Role Reference regulations Distretto Idrografico del Po e Design and development of Plans Legge 183/1989; Legge Autorità di Bacino del Po (Po for Water Management and 267/1998; Legge 365/2000; river basin Authority) Plans for Flood Risk D.lgs. 152/2006; D.lgs. 49/2010; Management for the D.lgs. 219/2010 hydrographic district. Regione Lombardia Management and D.lgs. 152/1999 - Local unit for hydraulic police implementation of interventions; Legge 183/1989 - DG Environment development of surveys on the D.lgs. 267/2000 - DG Civil Protection river catchment to assess anthropic impact and pressure factors Provincia di Sondrio Management of sectoral D.lgs. 267/2000 - Sector Spatial Planning, activities over the river Legge 142/1990 Energy and Mining catchment Legge 56/2014 - Sector Agricolture, Environment, Fishing & Hunting A.A.T.O. SO. Autorità d'Ambito Agenda setting, management Legge 36/1994 territoriale ottimale Sondrio and monitoring of the Integrated Water Service for the territory (units are defined at the regional level, as optimal homogenous areas, according to a set of ecological and management parameters) Consorzio BIM Adda Consortium of 78 Municipalities Decree 9.2.2004 of the Ministry in the Province of Sondrio, for the Environment obligatory participation, for the management of levies on hydroelectric exploitation Protezione Civile Sondrio Provincial Civil Protection Plan Legge 225/1992 D.lgs. 112/1998 Comunità montane, Comuni e Special plans for the territory D.lgs. 18 agosto 2000, n. 267 Unioni Montane and supply of services for the members

Conclusions

The set-up of a River Contract also responds to the need of an approach to territorial transformations based on a “collective social intellect”, when relevant transformations on a given territory should be driven in the first place by the engagement of the population and the assumption of a set of shared identity values related to the locality, necessary for carrying on common choices about the transformation.

One of the most critical points appears to be the unsuccesful interplay with the business community, mainly due to the lack of compulsoriness of the policy instruments implemented by the River Contract.

Also, the heavy fragmentation of competences and a very complex plethora of laws and regulation relevant for the management of the river and the related territory hinders the effectiveness of the initiative in pursuing its goals.

Finally, lack of resources is a key criticality. It can be noticed that River Contract have been promoted as initiatives able to bring resources to the territory and dedicated financial coverage, but in fact they have no dedicated budget.

Annex

Interview scheme for Upper Adda River Contract Case Study

1. Origins of the Contract River 2. Current status 3. Governance scheme, dependencies, binding level, etc. 4. Actual and potential financial capacity 5. How did you set targets/objectives? Are any M&E involved? 6. What does the organization of the technical HR part look like? 7. Who am I interviewing? 8. What is your knowledge of the the of CC/CCA? 9. What is your knowledge of the RAS/NAS, RAP/NAP, Covenant of Mayors, etc.? 10. What obstacles have you experienced /are you experiencing in your bottom-up approach? What “governance” obstacles? 11. “Do you remember if climate change (adaptation) has been a topic of the last(s) electoral campaign(s)?” 12. “Do you remember climate change (adaptation) to be a topic in the current administration?” 13. “Do you remember climate change (adaptation) being mentioned in (not explicitly dedicated) meetings?” - “Have you had any dedicated meetings in the current administration?” 14. “How would you evaluate the importance/priority of Climate Adaptation in your setting (administration, office, business community, organization, etc.)?” 15. “Is there any pressure factor fostering Climate Adaptation that you are aware of? Internal? External? How effective is it in your opinion?” 16. What instruments are in place to achieve coherency? What could be good instruments to achieve it? 17. At what stage is coherency verified (planning, implementation, monitoring)? 18. Is it possible to define “goals” in the Case Study, against which to analyse coherency with Climate Adaptation goals? Where are those goals defined? Is there a reference document? 19. In the context of the Case Study, what defines the framework adaptation goals? (NAS, RAS, etc.) 20. How are potential conflicts, competing interests, trade-offs between sector policy goals and adaptation- related policy contents dealt with? 21. Are conflict potentials and trade-offs explicitly and pro-actively identified? In how far have they been resolved? 22. Are potential synergies identified? Is exploitation of synergies pro-actively pursued? 23. For how long have you been working in your current position? 24. Do you think we (government, administration, research, etc.) are doing enough to face climate change? (this question is purposely general, includes both mitigation and adaptation) 25. Do you think we are doing enough in terms of adaptation to climate change? 26. Do you think in general the distinction between Adaptation and Mitigation has been illustrated well enough? 27. Can you on a personal level witness climate change? Do you have any example that you would like to share? 28. Is there a measure/policy/action/etc. about which you are particularly satisfied (even just as a good start) in terms of adaptation to climate change? (analyst will notice if the answer deals with Climate Adaptation or Climate Change Mitigation or Climate Change) 29. Do you think the difference between series projection and climate scenarios has been illustrated well enough? 30. What is usually the horizon in terms of time of the policies you work on? If you think in terms of 2030-2050- 2070-2100, can you imagine the same policy? Useful? Harmful? Still valid? 31. Do you expect any positive change from CC here? 32. Is DRR adequately taking into consideration CC here? 33. How would you evaluate the implementation of the mainstreaming process and of the horizontal governance of the Case Study? 34. What horizontal subjects are involved? How many interactions, of what kind? 35. What are the success factors/barriers? 36. What are the dependencies between the policy documents with regards to the Case Study?

37. How is cross-sectoral coordination achieved? 38. How is private sector affected in Case Study? 39. How is private sector engagement achieved, if any, with regards to Case Study?