Rosalia Vacca and the Dream of… Roberto Isola
Roberto Isola: innovation and balance in the irrigation management of Ovest Sesia
Roberto Isola, hydraulic engineer, has dedicated his career to the management of water resources between East and West Sesia, operating in a historical period marked by significant climatic events, including two serious floods. Engineer Isola, recalling the etymology of the term *consortium*, underlines its original value: an aggregation of subjects who “share the same fate”. The objective of the West Sesia Consortium, in fact, is not to sell water, but to preserve and maintain an efficient water network that represents the vital infrastructure for the agricultural economy of the entire territory, sharing the costs among all those who use it.
According to Isola, Cavour's true “stroke of genius” was to directly involve farmers in water management, creating an almost perfect synergy between individual interests and collective needs. The engineer passionately talks about his work at Ovest Sesia, first as chief engineer and then as general manager, where he worked to rebalance representation and correct economic imbalances between isolated estates and irrigation districts, the territorial articulations on which the Consortium is structured.
Video table of contents
- Hydraulic Engineer
- The period in West Sesia
- West Sesia and the floods: an important subject to collaborate with
- The Consortium, sharing the fate
- We are not here to sell water
- 2022 Drought and Water Shortage
- Many interlocutors and decision levels
- Everyone brings water to their own mill
- The law and the statute: our limits of action
- Water Judicial Bodies
- The Board of Arbiters: Internal Justice within the Consortium and the Conflict of Interests
- The territorial branches of the Consortium: irrigation districts and isolated estates, retail water and wholesale water
- Direct representation of isolated estates and their management
- West Sesia and Consortium of Baraggia: a failed merger
- Cavour's great intuition: involving farmers in water management
- My journey in West Sesia: isolated estates and hydroelectric power plants
- Dialogue with water carriers: fundamental for knowledge of the territory
- Water has influenced me since I was little
- The rice field does not waste water, it fills the water table and returns it further downstream through springs and collection channels
- The scent of water and the types of water that flow into the West Sesia system
- The sense of water
- The quality of the water that comes from the rivers is similar to that which we reintroduce
Interview information
Country: IT
Region: Piemonte
City: Vercelli
Roberto Isola
Date of birth: 07-20-1955
School: University
Profession: Manager
Languages: Italiano
Document by: Luca Ghiardo
Video by: Davide Porporato, Roberta Lombardi, Luca Ghiardo
Created: 15-11-2024
Questo video fa parte del seguente archivio
Rice stories
Rice stories
Food is a fundamental resource for man and his health, both through the supply of nutrients and the ability to embody traits of human culture that play a leading role in our well-being.
Over time, each territory has built original ways in which to relate to the fruits of its land, enriching them with rituals, symbolic meanings and culinary customs. Much of these relationships have been lost following the years of the economic boom, with the exodus from the countryside to urban centers, with the advent of agriculture for mass production and ultimately with the globalization of markets and the consequent impoverishment of the heritage of biodiversity and ethnodiversity.
The purpose of this archive is to collect evidence relating to the main rice production area in Europe, that is the Po Valley, and to investigate, through the analysis of textual sources and testimonies collected in the field, both what survives of this heritage, and the ways in which which has evolved and reached us, paying particular attention to the explicit and implicit links that bind food and health.
