The Aniene River: a green infrastructure to set up a metropolitan strategy

The latest territorial government tools have embedded green infrastructure with the aim to preserve the natural character and to stimulate regeneration processes of public open space and social cohesion, especially in peri-urban areas, where suburbs melt with agricultural and natural landscapes, and along the rivers, often neglected. This contribution will investigate the preparatory works for the new General Master Plan of Tivoli. A special focus is about the Aniene River as a potential Green Infrastructure, capable of restoring continuity to the ecological and functional fragmentation of landscapes heavily compromised by urban growth and production pressure. During the last decades, peri-urbanization and industrialization phenomena in these areas have ignored the river basin. The results are features of brownfields, industrial archaeology sites, informal settlements whereas open space is abandoned or unfittingly occupied by landfills, junkyards, brownfields. The Aniene River system boasts a relevant geographical dimension in order to test a strategic metropolitan governance able to address different sectoral issues. In this direction, the Aniene River Contract, that has recently started its official process, complements the traditional planning tools and represents a main opportunity for participatory processes where the community turns out to be central.