A century of works on river seveso: From unregulated development to basin reclamation

Abstract

The story of the river Seveso is briefly presented in this article. Seveso is a small river that enters into a large city as milano, where it flows covering a total reach of around 15 km. In the years the river produced an impressive number of floods (on average more than 2.5 per year), and no rapid solution is devised. Structural solutions have been carried out, and they are related to the construction of five storage tanks, the rehabilitation of few critical points within the covered reach of the river Seveso and the doubling of a bypass in the northern area of the province of milano. Although it is difficult to compare the global costs to 'solve' the problem with the advantages obtained during the development of the city, in the authors' opinion the only reason for this situation is the unconsciousness of the Public Administration of that time regarding the consequences in the underestimation of the risk of floods. While structural solutions have to be quickly produced in order to alleviate the discomfort of the people living in that area, more long-term solutions should imply a change of paradigm, being mainly non-structural, more holistic and paying attention to water use and discharge destination.