Water Routes of Po Valley

Water is a fundamental resource for the life of the planet and indispensable for humans, serving purposes such as food and hygiene, supporting agriculture, acting as a source of energy, functioning as a means of communication, and increasingly today, as a space for rest and rejuvenation. Alongside all of this, water has always been and still is a feared element: a carrier of diseases, a destructive force in case of floods (and paradoxically even during prolonged droughts). It must be added, and this is also well-known, that like many natural resources, water has, over time, needed the assistance of technology to meet the various uses to which it has been adapted by humans. But if the construction of large hydraulic infrastructure for water capture, distribution, and containment has been the foundation of long-term agricultural and commercial accumulation, entering the industrial age, water has not lost its centrality. In an initial phase, it served as a driving force for the textile industry and various other productions spread along the entire foothill region, which constituted a fundamental resource for the region. Subsequently, between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it played a pivotal role in the development of the electrical industry, a story in which technology, culture, and economics found a new synthesis. Today, we are finally beginning to recognize the potential of the extraordinary heritage of works that have accumulated over time, bearing witness to technical culture in the economic and social history of Lombardy. On the other hand, this represents a unique opportunity for local tourism that can combine entertainment and environmental sustainability