Exploring the Val Trebbia Defence Committee – Mobilising against damming in 1980s Italy: A chapter in the water war between Genoa and Piacenza over the waters of the Trebbia

Abstract

This article examines the Val Trebbia Defence Committee, a grassroots initiative formed by local communities in the Trebbia valley in the Northern Apennines of Italy, and focuses on its first campaigns against dam and water diversion projects in 1984. It explores how competing claims over water resources generated an interprovincial environmental conflict, described by newspapers as a ‘water war’ between Genoa and its growing demands for urban and industrial water and the valley communities of Trebbia. That local opposition emerged around concerns over the ecological integrity of the river basin, the protection of agriculture and tourism, and criticism of water management policies perceived as environmentally and socially unsustainable. Drawing on archival sources, newspapers, institutional records, and Geographicl Information Science (QGIS) mapping, the article reconstructs the historical trajectory of hydraulic projects in the Trebbia valley and the responses they provoked. It highlights how local communities mobilised politically against infrastructural interventions, foregrounding the role of environmental concerns within broader debates on territorial transformation, mountain marginalisation, and access to natural resources in contemporary Italy.