Collaborative Governance for Reviving Tiber Landscapes Downstream of Rome

The regeneration of river landscapes in urban and peri-urban areas is increasingly relevant on local agendas to promote integrated policies framing within landscape quality objectives both environmental protection and communities’ well-being. Centuries old relationships between the Tiber and Rome, at the basis of the city’s development, have gradually faded. Despite crossing a long stretch of diverse human and natural landscapes within the municipalities of Rome and Fiumicino, the river is far from a green blue infrastructure, nor is it conceived as a Common.At close distance from the riverbanks, suburbs interweave with traditional countryside, informal settlements, and landfills. Moreover, the administrative complexity and the overlapping of competences from different levels make the establishment of a river governance particularly difficult. New expectations have recently been raised by the adoption of the Tiber River Contract, that is, a collaborative and participative tool to enhance and innovate the effectiveness of decision making process for the protection and management of water resources and mitigation of hydraulic risk, taking into account landscape and local development issues as well. This contribution points out synergies and conflicting logics between traditional planning tools and bottom-up initiatives in reuse and re-appropriating processes, focusing on the south-western area downstream of Rome.