Floods and droughts
in the Po basin

The paper deals with the history of water-related disasters in the Italian north-east area, where the major river of the country has its delta. It focuses on how the management of the territory was organised in post-unitary Italy, the role of the technicians in this organization, and what was, if any, the communication of related risks to the population. In particular, the paper focuses on a major event in this history, which is the flood in the Ferrara area in 1872, examining the impact of this disaster on the above issues, and especially on a controversial debate about its causes.