The role of Knowledge in the Territorial Governance
by
Andrea Piccin
Regione Lombardia - Infrastruttura per l'Informazione Territoriale

The ``governance'' of a sailing boat needs an accurate knowledge of all the points of weakness in the hull and in the rigging, in order to avoid that a natural event as a storm, or a hit of Mistral, could evolve in a tragedy. In fact, even with the most accurate weather forecasts, if a boat (or a territory) is right on the way of a disaster, the only way to prevent panic and to mitigate its consequences is to be aware of the boat (and territorial) leaks, to prepare the boat (and plan the territory) in the safest way as possible and so to be ready to face the inescapable event that is coming in the most rational mood. This strategy comes from the acceptance that mankind has to live together with natural events: it is possible to foresee them, to mitigate their effects, but not to avoid them.

Within this context, knowledge is the first, necessary step.

The knowledge of a territory, its physical features and its dynamic evolution needs to be pointed out in a detailed and homogeneous framework. But knowledge for itself is not enough: it needs to be easily available and the information has to be consistent and updated.

In a highly complex territory such as the one of Lombardy, this result can be obtained only establishing an open and well-related infrastructure of the territorial information. This system, according to the EU Commission proposal ``INSPIRE'' (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe, www.ec-gis.org/inspire), consists in integrated spatial information services, delivered to the users (both policy-makers and citizens) from sources at different levels. ``Data should be collected once and maintained [updated] at the level where this can be done most effectively'': this INSPIRE principle means that different organizations (both public and private) involved in territorial analysis and management, should co-operate to produce a well-ruled flux of spatial information, characterised by the so-called ``interoperability'' of data.

The I.I.T. (Infrastruttura per l'Informazione Territoriale) of Regione Lombardia is moving in this direction from 2003, establishing agreements with public and private subjects for spatial data exchange and promoting experimentations in different basic themes, from the topographic data bases up to the landslides inventory, funded with regional, local and national and e-government resources.

Spatial Data dissemination is favoured by a dedicated website (Portale dell'Informazione Territoriale, www.cartografia.regione.lombardia.it) that permits search, navigation and download of geodata, coming from different sources and regarding different aspects of the regional territory, and the development of web services, as web data editing or local administrations support about existing planning restrictions.

Knowledge is basic for local and regional territorial planning (for prevention and sustainable development), for disaster management (when it finally comes) and for territorial governance, as a whole. But as the steering of a sailboat is efficient and safe only when the skipper couple a detailed and experienced knowledge of its boat and of the surrounding environment with the capability of making the crew members co-operate one each other, so the territorial governance needs that each member of the system co-operates within the system, drops its own interests and gives its contributions to the system, in terms of experience and data. This is probably the hardest goal to reach, despite the wide expressions of interest, and it's obviously concerned with mankind, not with technical complexity.

Date received: July 25, 2005

Copyright © 2005 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # caqy-65.