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Editorial

different issues linked to the “water problem”, placing them side by side in a linear,
almost didactic fashion, supplying data, analyses and comments.
Water, an issue crucial to this publication, is naturally even more of a vital ele-
ment for human life. Our bodies are composed for the most part of water, or at least
of liquids; two thirds of the Earth are covered by water, although freshwater ac-
counts for only 2,5 % (and more than half of this fraction is imprisoned in gla-
ciers). We are therefore permeated by water in such a way that aphorisms, quota-
tions, anecdotes and recollections are an ever present ingredient of our lives and of
our conversations. Nor could things have gone differently, seeing that water appears
already in the Genesis, on the third day of Creation («God said, “The waters under
the heaven shall be gathered to one place, and dry land shall be seen.”»: Genesis, 1-
7). From that time we have been awash in allusions and references: from Greek
philosophers of the Ionic school, up to the very recent scientific debate over the pres-
ence of water on Mars. Between these two, we find all kinds of references: from the
eureka uttered by Archimedes, to the tsunami that devastated the shores of the
Indian Ocean, to the famous acqua alle funi cry, to the water clock, to Captain
Nemo to heavy water, to baptismal fonts to weather forecasts…
All these clichés do not appear in the many authoritative contributions which ad-
dress through serious and well-documented arguments such a delicate and complex
theme as the difficult relationship between man and water resources, which has created
many tensions in the past, which now shows clearly the price man must pay for irre-
sponsible past behaviour, and for macroscopic injustice in allocating water resources.
Some researchers believe that within fifteen years we will reach a climax trigger-
ing wars over water access. According to others instead water will be an important el-
ement, unifying men and policies (this would put into practice the exhortation of the
19 century Italian writer Giovanni Verga, according to which “neighbours should
th
be like the tiles on a roof, pouring each other water”).
In any case, whether we will experience a global conflict, or whether a sort of
“water armistice” will really prevail, we cannot sit in idleness, bemoaning the losses
and damages that water “scarcity” and man’s “meddlesomeness” over water has
caused to the environment, thus affecting the life of whole populations, as well as the
future of mankind. One of the key elements of any future scenario will very likely 6
be the role which the agricultural sector will play: its task will be to increase food n.
production, to respond to an ever increasing demand for a growing population, with- - II
out employing larger water resources. A change of attitude and a different way of
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