Comprehensive testing and application of the pip procedure: The verbano project case study

Abstract

This chapter presents an application of the PIP procedure to a real-world case study. Lake Verbano, also known as Lake Maggiore, is a natural lake located south of the Alps between Italy and Switzerland. It is the most important water system of the sub-Alpine area on account of its multiple-occasionally conflicting-socioeconomic uses. Its large Alpine watershed (6600 km2) is characterized by extremely variable weather conditions that cause important outbreaks of flood and drought periods of both the lake and its outflow-the River Ticino-with consequent substantial damages to the socioeconomic systems. Two issues that make the project extremely challenging and significantly more complicated than the common planning tasks are the combined presence of planning and management decisions because of the highly dynamical nature of the water system, and its transboundary position, which results in the presence of more than one decision maker (DM). From a methodological perspective the PIP procedure has shown to be able to deal with complex problems, with many decision makers and many stakeholders, where a mixture of planning and management decisions has to be taken. These kind of problems can be considered as the more complex ones in the field of the integrated water resources management. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.