OPEN ACCESS
The story of the river Seveso is briefly presented in this article. Seveso is a small river that enters into a large city as milano, where it flows covering a total reach of around 15 km. In the years the river produced an impressive number of floods (on average more than 2.5 per year), and no rapid solution is devised. Structural solutions have been carried out, and they are related to the construction of five stor- age tanks, the rehabilitation of few critical points within the covered reach of the river Seveso and the doubling of a bypass in the northern area of the province of milano. Although it is difficult to compare the global costs to ‘solve’ the problem with the advantages obtained during the development of the city, in the authors’ opinion the only reason for this situation is the unconsciousness of the Public Admin- istration of that time regarding the consequences in the underestimation of the risk of floods. While structural solutions have to be quickly produced in order to alleviate the discomfort of the people living in that area, more long-term solutions should imply a change of paradigm, being mainly non-structural, more holistic and paying attention to water use and discharge destination.
development, regulation, river Seveso, urban flood
[1] Munich-Re, Flooding and Insurance. Münchner Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft: Munich, 1997.
[2] De Wrachien, D., Mambretti, S. & Schultz, B., Flood management and risk assessment in flood-prone areas: measures and solutions.Irrigation and Drainage, 60(2), pp. 229–240, 2011. DOI: 10.1002/ird.557.
[3] Qari, H.A., Jomoah, I. & Mambretti, S., Flood management in highly developed areas: problems and proposed solutions. Journal of American Science, 10(3), pp. 6–15, 2014. DOI: 10.7537/marsjas100314.02.
[4] MM SpA, Studio di fattibilità della sistemazione idraulica del torrente Seveso nella tratta compresa tra Palazzolo e Milano nell’ambito idrografico di pianura Lambro – Olona, Technical Report, Milano, 2011 (in Italian).
[5] Felice Poggi, Idrografia nei dintorni di Milano nell’era romana, Milano, 1911 (in Italian).
[6] Gentile, A., Brown, M. & Spadoni, G., Viaggio nel sottosuolo di Milano tra acque e canali segreti, Comune di Milano, Milano, 1990 (in Italian).
[7] La Montagna, G., The hydraulic safeguard of the city of Milan: the Canale Scolmatore di Nord-Ovest. Proceedings of 7th International Conference on Computer Simulation of Risk Analysis and Hazard Mitigation, Milano, pp. 693–702, 2010.
[8] AIPO, Studio idraulico del Torrente Seveso, June 2011 (in Italian).
[9] AIPO, Vasca di laminazione sul fiume Seveso in comune di Senago – progetto definitivo, Ottobre 2014 (in Italian).
[10] MM SpA, Vasca di laminazione sul fiume Seveso in comune di Milano – progetto definitivo, Maggio 2017 (in Italian).
[11] Schultz, B., Irrigation, drainage and flood protection in a rapidly changing world. Irrigation and Drainage, 50(4), pp. 261–277, 2001. DOI: 10.1002/ird.35.
[12] Schultz, B., Flood management under rapid urbanisation and industrialisation in flood – prone areas: a need for serious consideration. Irrigation and Drainage, 55(1), pp 3–8, 2006. DOI: 10.1002/ird.239.
[13] Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Making Space for Water Developing a New Government Strategy for Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management in England, London, 2004.