The Basin Contract as a project-oriented tool for an integrated and sustainable management of water resources. A project for productive landscapes in Coros, Sardinia.

In line with the goal 6 of the Agenda 2030, “Ensure availability and sustaina-ble management of water and sanitation for all”, this paper proposes a new organisational set-up of the growing coltural and cultural landscapes through the construction of a cooperative intersubjective dimension, aimed at improv-ing water management and saving measures. Integrated management of water resources, water protection measures, wastewater recovery and the ecosys-tems protection keep pace with physical and social accessibility to resources, opportunities and knowledge. The restoration of environmental and ecological connections is an unavoida-ble priority in the project of the new organisational set-up, designed and man-aged in order to provide the widest spectrum of ecosystem services. For our purposes, the aim of our paper is to delineate the possible scenarios through a participatory and project-oriented juridical protocol for environ-mental regeneration, named the “Basin Contract”, and discuss the overall strategy for the implementation of effective interventions and the regulations for the management. We present an ongoing experience in the Coros region, a low-density area in North-Western Sardinia with a strong agricultural vocation. The ecological approach finds its operability in the connectivity potential of the green infrastructure as a project of the system of connections among eco-system services at different levels. The green infrastructure includes green and blue areas (vineyards, olive groves and artichoke fields, the water ecosys-tems of the Riu Mannu, the Mascari river, the Cuga and Bidighinzu lakes, and several basins). Finally, the connection strategy finds support in the reorganization of the grey infrastructure, in order to connect and manage the pipeline network for the transportation of the wastewater purified with refinement processes, useful for the agricultural supply function.