Integrated management of water resources in Piedmont: Case study catchment basin of the Orco stream

The studies aiming at the definition of a water protection plan for Piedmont paid special attention to the water budget and to its diffused conditions of imbalance caused by more or less serious seasonal water deficiencies relating to both the anthropic and the environmental component. The case under consideration, the catchment basin of the Orco stream (912 km2), constitutes a hard chal- lenge for the test and calibration of an integrated and dynamic management system of the water budget to obtain a fair and solidary allocation of the available resources amongst the legitimate water users. The Authors point out that in the mountain part of the Orco there is an important hydroelectric system, with several artificial reservoirs. In the plane part, on the contrary, numerous superficial derivations are present, mainly for irrigation purposes. The first applications of the mathematical modelling to simulate the behaviour of the water system in the Orco basin, when varying the operative rules for the water derivations and releases, point out the re- markable potentiality of the computer simulation model used. At the same time, the degree of knowledge and quantitative monitoring of the superficial and underground water resources and of the derivations and releases must noticeably be increased in order to guarantee a good precision of the results.