Water First Project
This project aims to generate initiatives and reflections on the wide theme of Water.
Water First initiatives are:
Water is the Protagonist
Water, a threat and a resource, but also a protagonist in its countless signifiers in terms of its connections with religiosity, philosophy, art, and sociality.
- The initiatives (conferences, lectures, cultural and technical visits, publications, etc.) will refer to Florence. They will take place in the prestigious venues of the members of the Firenze 2016 Committee, starting with Palazzo Medici Riccardi where the exhibition Firenze 1966-2016: Beauty Saved is open from 1 December until 2 July 2017.
- Other venues in Florence that have given initial availability are the Basilica of Santa Croce, the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, the Basilica of San Miniato, and the University of Florence.
- In Tuscany, initiatives are planned in various locations, particularly visits to historic hydraulic works (the works of the reclamations in Maremma, Castiglione della Pescaia, and the Pisa province), historic aqueducts such as the recently rediscovered Vasari-designed aqueduct in Arezzo, and the historic reconstruction of the transportation of wood from Casentino and marble from Versilia to Florence.
Water and solidarity
The Project aims to use the anniversary of the 1966 flood,which was the first global solidarity event in the face of a natural disaster, to propose the theme of resilience based on sharing and collaboration for disaster reduction.
The project aims to create, through a wide network of actors and similar initiatives at the national and international levels, a collection of events in which solidarity was shown in response to disasters. The Florence 2016 Committee has compiled an archive of international aid following the Florence flood, which offers a way to see how more than 80 countries around the world mobilized. An archive is also being created for national aid to the 1966 flooded municipalities, and numerous initiatives are planned.
The project is promoted and supported under the Florence 2016 Committee by:
- DICEA - Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering - UNIFI
- Tuscany System Foundation
- GRAL - GRuppo Alluvioni (Flood Group)
- Members of the Tuscany-Florence 2016 Committee.
Leonardo to Leonardo
Taking the opportunity of the anniversaries of the birth of Leonardo Ximenes (27 December 1716) and the death of Leonardo da Vinci (2 May 1519), a course of revisiting and enhancing historical Tuscan hydraulics is proposed for the three-year period 2017-2019.
- The project was launched on 5 December 2016, with a conference dedicated to Leonardo Ximenes jointly organized by the Osservatorio Ximeniano and the Florence 2016 Committee, and was held at Palazzo Medici Riccardi to commemorate the three centuries since the birth of the great plumber, meteorologist, and cartographer.
- It was the beginning, in the Water First Project, of the path on historical and current Tuscan hydraulics, which lead us, in 2019, to the anniversary of Leonardo daVinci’s death. We have called this specific path “from Leonardo to Leonardo” to document in the next three years the great Tuscan hydraulic tradition: Galilei, Castelli, Torricelli, Fossombroni, and Manetti with the goal that the reconstruction in a historical perspective of what was wisely done in the past will guide us in that change of pace that is necessary to address the current problems of our rivers and water resources that we have greatly neglected in recent decades. Click here to learn about the Ximenian Days in Castiglione della Pescaia.
The Nexus: Water, Food, Energy, Climate, Population Ecology
The issues of sustainable development and resilience at global and local levels have long necessitated addressing natural resource issues and people’s ecology with a holistic and integrated approach. The idea, therefore, is to extend the Nexus concept to cover the multidimensionality of the water resource through the integration of socio-eco-hydrological and water footprint analyses for the improvement of ecosystem services.
Ecological & Water Footprint: The use of indicators to assess the impact on the environment and water resources represents the possibility to effectively analyze and communicate the impact of human activities on the ecosystem. With this project, it is proposed to provide operational tools to create synergies between production and land management by carrying out water footprint analyses of Tuscany’s productive realities. This path, in coordination with land reclamation consortia and management bodies, together with representative subjects of the productive world, is decisive in assessing and improving the resilience and sustainability of the territory through the virtuous behavior of companies. Click here to learn about the Terra&Acqua project.
Ecosystem Services: Besides being a material resource, water is one of the fundamental elements for the proper maintenance of ecosystems from which multiple human benefits derive (ecosystem services). Water, ecosystems, and populations interact to determine the sustainability and value of the land; through the concept of ecosystem services, we can quantify the indirect benefits of the water resource and highlight its “multi-purpose” character. In fact, water, within a territory, is much more than a resource to be exploited or protected from: water is indispensable support to numerous ecosystem functions, it is the basis of (micro)climatic regulation, and it is a foundational element of spiritual and aesthetic values that of a territory determine its identity. The goal is to make this information available for future development plans in which the multiplicity of values of the water resource is respected and protected.
Last update
21.01.2025