physical and cultural flows of lake como, italy: cross-current studies in limnology ... · physical...

Physical and cultural flows of Lake Como, Italy:

Cross-current studies in Limnology and Anthropology

Sarah Laborde

D.I. (M.Eng.) Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Géologie, France

This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

of The University of Western Australia,

with joint enrolment in:

Water Research Engineering

Centre for Water Research

Social and Cultural Studies

Discipline of Anthropology

June 2012

iii

A lake is the landscape's most beautiful

and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye;

looking into which the beholder measures

the depth of his own nature

Henry David Thoreau

v

Abstract

What do anthropology and limnology have in common, and in what ways might the

social, natural and engineering sciences contribute to knowledge about the environment

of which humans are an intrinsic part? With Italy’s Lake Como at its centre, this thesis

explores the multiple ways a single environment can be known within and across

disciplinary fields, and social groups. The emergence and application of environmental

knowledge across scientific and social domains is thus examined, building on recent

developments in physical limnology and contemporary theories in anthropology.

Four original journal articles constitute the bulk of the thesis. Two of these are grounded

in the fields of physical limnology and anthropology respectively, while two canvass

both fields of inquiry. The articles are linked by a dialectical process across the

disciplines, which emerged as a result of a mixed methods approach. Integrated foci

include numerical analyses and modelling of the Lake’s hydrodynamics, ethnographic

work among the Lake’s drift-net fishers, comparative analysis of scientific and local

practices of lake knowledge, and the governance implications of disconnected technical

and local understandings of the Lake. Each article makes a contribution to knowledge

within its own discipline, and also constitutes data for a trans-disciplinary emphasis via

a range of epistemological concerns related to environmental knowledge.

Conclusions include that there is ample room to expand the intellectual and practical

application of a trans-disciplinary approach to support sustainable environments and

communities. In particular, I argue that the integration of scientific and local knowledge

can be pivotal in research focused on geophysical environments, yet it is a under-used

heuristic tool. This thesis shows how examining the emergence of diverse bodies of

knowledge and their relationship to places, both in the case of scientific and local

practices, supports the engagement of integrated, trans-disciplinary emphases, practice

and knowledge about the environment.

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Contents

ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................................... V

CONTENTS ...................................................................................................................................... VII

LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................. XI

LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................................. XV

LIST OF EQUATIONS .......................................................................................................................... XV

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................................... XVII

PREFACE AND CANDIDATE STATEMENT ................................................................................. XXI

CHAPTER 1 THESIS PROBLEM AND THEORETICAL CONTEXT ........................................... 1

1.1 INTRODUCTORY EMPHASIS ............................................................................................................. 1 1.2 THE THESIS PROBLEM ..................................................................................................................... 3 1.3 DEFINITIONS AND THEORIES: UNTANGLING WORDS AND PRACTICES .............................................. 6

1.3.1 On the environment and knowledge ....................................................................................... 6 1.3.2 Scientific, local, traditional, indigenous knowledges ............................................................. 8

1.4 OVERVIEW OF THE ORIGINAL PAPERS (CHAPTERS 3 TO 6) ............................................................ 10 1.4.1 Paper 1: CHAPTER 3 .......................................................................................................... 10 1.4.2 Paper 2: CHAPTER 4 .......................................................................................................... 12 1.4.3 Paper 3: CHAPTER 5 .......................................................................................................... 15 1.4.4 Paper 4: CHAPTER 6 .......................................................................................................... 17

1.5 CONCLUDING REMARKS ............................................................................................................... 19 1.6 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................. 20

CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGIES, LITERATURE CONTEXT, AND INTRODUCTION TO

THE LAKE ........................................................................................................................................ 23

2.1 GENERAL APPROACH .................................................................................................................... 23 2.2 TERMINOLOGY: MANGLE OF PREFIXES.......................................................................................... 24 2.3 LAKE COMO AS A WATER BODY ................................................................................................... 28

2.3.1 The Lake ............................................................................................................................... 29 2.3.2 Data collection and analysis (relevant to Chapters 3, 4 and 5) ........................................... 31 2.3.3 Hydrodynamic modelling ..................................................................................................... 32

2.4 LAKE COMO AS A WATERSCAPE ................................................................................................... 34 2.4.1 The Lake ............................................................................................................................... 34

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2.4.2 Questionnaire, textual analysis (Chapter 4) ......................................................................... 37 2.4.3 Being there (Chapters 5 and 6): the Lake as a fishing – and ethnographic – taskscape ...... 38

2.5 REFLEXIVITY ................................................................................................................................ 40 2.5.1 Reflexive limnology .............................................................................................................. 40 2.5.2 Elements of reflexive ethnography ....................................................................................... 41 2.5.3 Translation: several voices in one ........................................................................................ 43

2.6 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................. 45

CHAPTER 3 INFLOW INTRUSIONS AT MULTIPLE SCALES IN A LARGE TEMPERATE

LAKE ........................................................................................................................................ 49

3.1 ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... 49 3.2 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 49 3.3 METHODS...................................................................................................................................... 52

3.3.1 Field data ............................................................................................................................. 52 3.3.2 Scaling analysis .................................................................................................................... 53 3.3.3 Numerical model .................................................................................................................. 55

3.4 RESULTS ....................................................................................................................................... 56 3.4.1 Field data ............................................................................................................................. 56

3.4.1.1 Inflow regimes and fate of small inflows ...................................................................................... 56 3.4.1.2 Fate of large alpine inflows: interplay with upwelling and unsteadiness ...................................... 58 3.4.1.3 Effect of the Earth rotation: deflection and instabilities ............................................................... 63

3.5 NUMERICAL MODELLING .............................................................................................................. 64 3.5.1 Validation ............................................................................................................................. 64 3.5.2 Fate of large inflows- intrusion, deflection, instability ........................................................ 68 3.5.3 Fate of small inflows – intrusion, deflection, vertical mixing ............................................... 69

3.6 DISCUSSION .................................................................................................................................. 70 3.6.1 Intrusions interactions; effect on local flushing ................................................................... 70 3.6.2 Applications .......................................................................................................................... 72 3.6.3 Regional context ................................................................................................................... 73

3.7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................................. 74 3.8 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................. 74

CHAPTER 4 A WALL OUT OF PLACE: A HYDROLOGICAL AND SOCIO-CULTURAL

ANALYSIS OF PHYSICAL CHANGES TO THE LAKESHORE OF COMO, ITALY ............. 79

4.1 ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... 79 4.2 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 79

4.2.1 Definitions and theoretical framework ................................................................................. 81 4.2.2 Aim and overview of the article ............................................................................................ 83

4.3 FLOODS IN COMO: HYDROLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS .................................................................. 83 4.3.1 Background .......................................................................................................................... 83

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4.3.2 Methods ................................................................................................................................ 84 4.3.3 Results .................................................................................................................................. 85

4.3.3.1 Long-term trends .......................................................................................................................... 85 4.3.3.2 Seasonal trends and water uses ..................................................................................................... 86 4.3.3.3 Extreme events ............................................................................................................................. 87 4.3.3.4 Flood mitigation ........................................................................................................................... 88

4.3.4 The flood defence project ..................................................................................................... 91 4.4 SOCIAL MOVEMENT AGAINST THE ‘WALL’: A SOCIO-CULTURAL ANALYSIS .................................. 93

4.4.1 Methods ................................................................................................................................ 93 4.4.1.1 Questionnaire ................................................................................................................................ 93 4.4.1.2 Public data .................................................................................................................................... 95

4.4.2 Results .................................................................................................................................. 96 4.4.2.1 A social movement grounded in a sense of injustice, community and place ................................ 96 4.4.2.2 ‘The rise of a wall that unites the people’: place-related emotion and engagement .................... 100

4.4.3 Limitations of the analysis ................................................................................................. 104 4.5 DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................................ 105

4.5.1 A case for integrated and adaptive catchment management .............................................. 105 4.5.2 Engaging the public around place attachments and meanings .......................................... 107

4.6 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................. 108 4.6.1 Place-based integration of technical and socio-cultural knowledge ................................. 108

4.7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................... 109 4.8 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................... 110

CHAPTER 5 FISHING NETS AND DATA LOGGERS: CONTRIBUTIONS OF LOCAL

KNOWLEDGE TO PHYSICAL LIMNOLOGY ........................................................................... 119

5.1 ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................. 119 5.2 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 120

5.2.1 Lake Como (Lario) ............................................................................................................. 121 5.2.2 Fishers’ practices: free-drifting nets ................................................................................. 122

5.3 MATERIAL AND METHODS .......................................................................................................... 123 5.4 RESULTS ..................................................................................................................................... 126

5.4.1 Fishers’ knowledge of the lake’s seasons and dominant currents ..................................... 126 5.4.2 Observations of net drifting paths and cross-shore flow patterns ..................................... 129 5.4.3 Modelling results ............................................................................................................... 130

5.5 DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................................ 132 5.6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................... 133 5.7 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................... 134

CHAPTER 6 THE MAKING AND MEANING OF ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE: A

FISHERMAN, A LIMNOLOGIST, AND AN ITALIAN LAKE .................................................. 137

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6.1 ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................. 137 6.2 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 138 6.3 THE LAKE ................................................................................................................................... 140

6.3.1 A waterscape ...................................................................................................................... 140 6.3.2 A body of water ................................................................................................................... 141

6.4 CROSS-CURRENT NARRATIVES: FISHING AND LIMNOLOGY IN PRACTICE ...................................... 143 6.4.1 A note about context and methods ...................................................................................... 143 6.4.2 Fishing the Lake ................................................................................................................. 143 6.4.3 Modelling the Lake ............................................................................................................. 148

6.5 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ........................................................................................................... 151 6.5.1 Attention, embodiment and the flows of practice ................................................................ 151 6.5.2 Heterotopias of environmental science .............................................................................. 154

6.6 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................... 156 6.7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: .............................................................................................................. 158 6.8 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................... 158

CHAPTER 7 DISCUSSION .............................................................................................................. 163

7.1 A FEW STEPS BACK TO START WITH… ......................................................................................... 163 7.2 USEFUL KNOWLEDGE – THE POINT IS FOR WHOM, AND HOW? ..................................................... 165

7.2.1 The grammar and the practice: environmental science and local knowledge .................... 174 7.2.2 Anthropologists and scientists across traditions of knowledge, within their own, and ‘in

place’ ............................................................................................................................................ 177 7.3 LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE WORK ............................................................................................... 180 7.4 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................... 182

CHAPTER 8 CONCLUSIONS, AND A STATEMENT ABOUT HOW AND WHY THIS

THESIS MIGHT HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT … .......................................................................... 185

8.1 A PROCESS-FOCUSED CONTRIBUTION TO PHYSICAL LIMNOLOGY ................................................ 185 8.2 AN IN-DEPTH ETHNOGRAPHIC INQUIRY INTO PEOPLE’S RELATIONSHIPS TO LAKE COMO ............ 187 8.3 MORE THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS? ........................................................................................... 188 8.4 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................... 191

COMPLETE BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 193

APPENDIX A (CHAPTER 4) ............................................................................................................... 213

APPENDIX B (CHAPTER 4) ................................................................................................................ 214

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List of figures

Figure 1. ‘Table of contents’ image of Paper 1. (source: the model impression on the top left is from the

CWR website)................................................................................................................................... 12

Figure 2. ‘Table of contents’ image of Paper 2. (source: the picture on the bottom left is my own, the

poster on the bottom right was to announce the first public manifestation in response to the

structure). .......................................................................................................................................... 14

Figure 3. ‘Table of contents’ image of Paper 3. In the centre is a graphic impression of a drift-net in the

water. (source: pictures are my own, taken during ethnographic fieldwork. They relate to the

practice of drift-net fishing through time). ....................................................................................... 17

Figure 4. ‘Table of contents’ image of Paper 4. (source: pictures are my own, taken during ethnographic

fieldwork). ........................................................................................................................................ 19

Figure 5: M.C. Escher. Drawing Hands, 1948. (Permission for reproduction was requested) ................... 26

Figure 6: Summary of methods used in the different thesis chapters, and their location on the research

spectrum from quantitative to qualitative research ........................................................................... 27

Figure 7. Lake Como – Left: geographical context. Right: detail of the catchment ................................... 30

Figure 8. Bathymetry of Lake Como with depth contour lines of 100 m and 20 m for the main map and

the zoomed map around T1, respectively; locations of measurement stations (Conductivity,

Temperature, Depth (CTD) transects C1, C2, and F-Probe transects F1, F2). Ai=Adda inflow,

Ao=Adda outflow, C=Cosia inflow, B=Breggia inflow, M=Mera inflow ....................................... 50

Figure 9. A) Annual stratification in Lake Como in 2007: depths of 0.25 isotherms were averaged

between T2 and T3, over a sliding window of 5 days. B) Temperature and C) salinity of the Adda

(A), Mera (M), Cosia (C), and Breggia (B) Rivers, for the year 2006. Markers indicate

measurements, dotted lines are linear interpolations. D) Daily Adda flow rate for the year 2007. .. 51

Figure 10: In-lake salinity data corresponding to autumnal transects F1, F2 (October 2006), C1 and C2

(October 2007). Dashed vertical lines indicate the profiles locations; values are linearly interpolated

between profiles. ............................................................................................................................... 57

Figure : 11: Average seasonal water column temperature and inflows depths of intrusion. Depths of

isotherms 0.1ºC apart were averaged to obtain seasonal profiles at T1 (black line) and T2 (grey

line); W (winter), ES (early spring), and LS (late spring) are data from 2007 and S (summer), EA

(early autumn), and LA (late autumn) from 2008 because of gaps in data. T2 profiles (N) were used

to compute the regimes of the Adda and Mera Rivers, and T1 profiles (SW) were used for the Cosia

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and Breggia Rivers. Dashed lines: Adda (black) and Mera (grey); dotted lines: Cosia (black) and

Bregga (grey). ................................................................................................................................... 58

Figure 12. Thermal structure of the water column at stations T2 (N), T1 (SW), and T3 (SE) over the

summer 2008. Data points are separated by 4.5 hours. Arrows on top panel indicate major

upwelling events referred to in the text. ............................................................................................ 59

Figure 13. Differences between temperatures (ºC) measured at two T-chain locations after filtering by the

fundamental seiche period Ti for each season. A) Differences between southwestern (T1) and

northern (T2) stations. B) Differences between southeastern (T3) and northern (T2) stations. White

bands are gaps in data. Black lines indicate seasonal split: W, ES, LS 2007 and S, EA, LA 2008.

(a), (b) and (c) are referred to in the text. .......................................................................................... 60

Figure 14. All wind speeds and directions for the year 2007, at the three stations. Shading represent the

wind speed in m s-1, and the length of the 10 degrees bins represents the probability of occurrence

of the respective direction. ................................................................................................................ 61

Figure 15. A) Wind speed at T2 (UT2: black line) filtered over Ti/4 (Stevens and Lawrence 1997) and

stage of the Adda River near the mouth (H*, detrended: grey line). B) Log plot of the Wedderburn

number (W: black solid line) computed with average characteristics of the water column (g’=0.016

and h=10) and UT2; and temperature anomaly between T1 and T2 at 10 m after filtering by Ti (ΔT:

black dotted line). Triangles mark events referred to in the text. ...................................................... 62

Figure 16: A) satellite image of the northern arm of Lake Como; summer 2001 (reproduced with

permission - Copyright 2009 TerraMetrics). B) Model reproduction of the phenomena: velocity

vectors at 10 m depth. ‘Ar’ and ’Mr’, respectively indicate the Adda and Mera Rivers. .................. 64

Figure 17. A) water column temperature as measured by T2 sub sampled every hour; B) as simulated by

ELCOM, plotted every hour. Isotherm spacing is 1oC. Black isotherm is 13oC and represents the

thermocline. C) Time series of 13oC isotherm depth as measured in the field (black) and simulated

by ELCOM (grey). ............................................................................................................................ 66

Figure 18: Simulated salinity field corresponding to transects F1, F2, C1, and C2. Dashed lines indicate

the profiles locations; values are linearly interpolated between profiles. Corresponding field profiles

are in Fig. 10. .................................................................................................................................... 67

Figure 19: Left panel: location of transects A and B on the map of Lake Como. (A) north-south

component of the velocity for transect A (positive towards south), base of the surface layer (thin

dashed white line) and thermocline (thick dashed white line). (B) Same as A for transect B. (C)

Contours of the tracer from the Cosia River (grey) and Adda River (black) for transect A. (D) Same

as (C) for transect B. ......................................................................................................................... 68

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Figure 20. Longitudinal transects along the Cosia intrusion, from Como up to 6 km into the southwestern

arm and as simulated by the model. Isotherm 15 (dashed white line) represents the base of surface

layer. isotherm 13 (dashed white line) represents the thermocline. Shadings are Cosia and Breggia

tracer concentration in log scale (log10 [TR]). Black contours are Adda tracer concentrations in log

scale.A) Downwelling and B) upwelling are apart in time of Ti/2. Tracers were initialised at 1 in

both rivers. ........................................................................................................................................ 70

Figure 21. A) Wind speed (grey line) and direction (black dots) at T1. B) Cumulative mass of Adda tracer

(TRA, grey) and Cosia tracer (TRC, black) across the transect B (see location on map Fig. 19). C)

Same as B) across transect A (see location on map Fig. 19). B) and C) are numerical results.

Tracers were initialised at 1 in both rivers. Plain lines represent the base case; dotted lines represent

the numerical scenario (no northern inflows). .................................................................................. 72

Figure 22: Right: map of Lake Como and its catchment, and bottom: schematic drawing of the catchment

system. Left: zoom - the city of Como, and top frame: photographs representing the ‘wall’ as seen

from the footpath through a window in a wooden fence (taken by first author in Oct 2009) ........... 80

Figure 23: Maximum (red dots), mean (black dots) and minimum (blue dots) annual lake levels since

1845 (original data: Consorzio dell’Adda); and elevation of Piazza Cavour (grey dots, Comerci et

al. 2007). Vertical red lines indicate the positive difference between maximum lake level and

elevation of Piazza Cavour (e.g. flooding). The black line on the right represents the regulation

range. ................................................................................................................................................ 86

Figure 24: Average number of days per month when lake levels were higher than 198.51 m ASL

(corresponding to the lowest point of Piazza Cavour: Comerci et al. 2007) and 199.22 m ASL

(corresponding to significant floods with more than 1.5 hectares of the city flooded: Gastine 2006,

unpublished thesis). Data are averaged over the period [1965 – 2007]. ........................................... 87

Figure 25: A - Maximum daily rainfall observed in Bormio [1951-2005] (upper Adda catchment, blue

line) and Olginate [1961-2007] (Southeast of the lake, cyan line) and fitted linear trends (data:

Consorzio dell’ Adda). B – Highest and lowest total lake inflow calculated for the years 1946 to

2007 and fitted linear trends (data: Consorzio dell ‘Adda; atmospheric fluxes are included). ......... 88

Figure 26: Daily data of outflow discharge (m3s-1) plotted against lake level (m ASL) from 1946 to 1990

(light gray) and from 1991 to 2007 (dark gray, covers some light gray data points); dashed black

line: rating curve for Lake Como in natural conditions (before construction of the dam in 1946);

plain black line: rating curve for Lake Como in regulated conditions, all dam gates open (free

regime); dotted red lines: regulation range; plain red line: lowest elevation of Piazza Cavour

measured in 1997 (Comerci et al. 2007). Rating curves were elaborated by the Hydrographic Office

of the Po River and reported by Moisello and Vullo (2011)............................................................. 89

xiv

Figure 27: A – Lake levels corresponding to different catchment management scenarios for the flood of

November 2002. B – Water volume reserved in the upstream reservoirs in the base case and the

management scenario. ....................................................................................................................... 91

Figure 28: Theme frequency plot for online discussion platform. Horizontal axis is the item number;

items were plotted in chronological order (intervals within grey lines represent one day), vertical

axis is the count frequency for each theme (moving average over 30 items centred on item i). Lines

are best-fit linear trends for different themes. Vertical grey line represents one day. ..................... 103

Figure 29: Thermal structure of Lake Como and displacement of fishing nets due to internal motions (a)

1-day moving average of water column temperature (shading) in Lake Como averaged across

thermistor chains T1 (SW), T2 (N) and T3 (SE) throughout the year 2007; depth of isotherms 12

and 16 (blue lines) representing the preferred habitat of whitefish caught with oltane (b) schematic

drawing (section view) of the displacements of two types of drift nets (pendenti for the capture of

shad - red nets - and oltane for whitefish - blue nets), due to a wind-driven internal seiche (the

dashed line represents the density interface – black at the lower time bound and grey at the upper

time bound); top and bottom panels are separated in time by half the wave period. (c) Schematic

drawing (map view) of the displacements of nets (oltane) due to gyres and return flows. ............. 123

Figure 30: Comparison of qualitative map and model results of nightly patterns of metalimnetic motions.

(a) Qualitative map of water currents inferred by the displacements of oltane nets, overnight, during

the stratified period and in ‘common’ wind conditions (daily alternation of Tivano and Breva):

composite of individual maps obtained from interviews and participatory mapping with

professional fishermen. (b) Central map: records of wind speed and direction at stations T2 (N), T3

(SE) and T1 (SW) for July 12-17 2007; green and red shadings pertain to the regular winds called

Tivano (northerly) and Breva (southerly). Frames: model results of velocities in the metalimnion for

July 12 – 17 2007, output every 0.5 m (depth) and 15 min (time), then averaged overnight (7pm –

4am) and depth (12m - 21m). Return flows are highlighted in black. Blue lines are nightly (7pm –

4am) paths of constant-depth numerical sail drifters (one path per night between July 12 -17) set in

the lower metalimnion (12m - 21m). Each green cross is the start of a path, each red circle its end.

Frame locations are in (a). ............................................................................................................... 132

Figure 31: Map of Lake Como. Left: regional context (northern Italy and the Alps); right: outline of the

Lake, the name of the localities correspond to the place where I interviewed one or more local

fishers (apart from Como) ............................................................................................................... 142

Figure 32: 1. Schematic of nets (pendenti: A and oltane: B) in different currents; 2. Drawing from

notebook (27 Oct 2010) of a view across the nets (approximate east–west cut) that explains the

strategy of removing one float to obtain net rotation; 3. Alessandro setting the nets (picture taken on

27 Oct 2010); 4. Schematic of the net rotation crafted using the differential currents. ................... 147

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Figure 33. Example of data plot of temperature structure at one location in the Lake, through depth and

time; 2. the Lake’s bathymetry; 3. Extract of model log. ............................................................... 150

List of tables

Table 1. Fundamental seiche period for each season computed with the two-layer case formula and

evaluated using power spectra of isotherm displacements. Data correspond to 2007 measurements

for W, ES, and LS, and 2008 for S, EA, and LA. ............................................................................. 60

Table 2: Velocity scales for the northern plume in summer 2008 as estimated using Eqs. 2, 3 and as

inferred from field data. .................................................................................................................... 63

Table 3: Root mean square error, I1 and I2 norms of the thermal structure of the water column, as

measured and simulated. The analysis covers the whole simulation period from 30 September to 16

October 2007 included. ..................................................................................................................... 67

Table 4: PCA loadings for questionnaire items after rotation (Varimax with Kaiser normalization);

questionnaire statements were translated from Italian ...................................................................... 97

Table 5: Differences in vA, vS and vP scores for different protest groups ................................................ 98

Table 6: Differences in vA, vS and vP scores for different groups of lakeshore users ............................ 101

Table 7: Set of model performance statistics proposed by Willmott (1982) – Mean absolute error (MAE),

Root mean square error (RMSE) and normalised index of model performance (d2) for model output

and data at T1 (15 depths), T2 (13 depths) and T3 (8 depths) ........................................................ 125

Table 8: Hydrodynamic processes (bold) and corresponding fishers’ heuristics or practices .................. 128

Table 9: Possible research outcomes for each of the papers constitutive of the thesis, from the

perspectives of a) an environmental scientist/engineer, b) an environmental manager, c) a local

knowledge holder, d) an environmental anthropologist. ................................................................. 170

List of equations

Eq. 1

W =g'h2

u*2L .....................................................................................................................................

54

Eq. 2 U ~ NH he ..................................................................................................................................... 54

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Eq. 3

U ~ Qig'd

1/ 3

................................................................................................................................ 54

Eq. 4

R0 = Ufd

.................................................................................................................................... 55

Eq. 5

I1 =Fn − Snn=1

Nmax∑Snn=1

Nmax∑ .................................................................................................................... 56

Eq. 6

I2 =(Fn − Sn )2

n=1

Nmax∑Sn( )2

n=1

Nmax∑ ............................................................................................................ 56

Eq. 7

RMSE =(Fn − Sn )2

n=1

Nmax∑Nmax ......................................................................................................

56

Eq. 8

TD

TI

= f ((WP −WE )2) .............................................................................................................

174

xvii

Acknowledgments

A work is never completed except by some accident such

as weariness, satisfaction, the need to deliver, or death:

for, in relation to who or what is making it, it can only be

one stage in a series of inner transformations.

Paul Valery

Inner transformations emerge from encounters and events that accumulate, combine and

mature at unpredictable times. I cannot therefore recall all that has influenced the

writing of this work, and it is impossible to acknowledge all the people who have

contributed to it. Some, however, have played defining roles in the learning process

from which this thesis came forth: this section is to thank them for their variety of

influences on my thinking, doing and, thus, being over the last four years.

At school, I was never really able to express preference between scientific and

humanistic topics, for I was enthusiastic about them all. Now, 10 years out of school, I

still cannot decide, but fortunately I am no longer being asked to. I am most grateful to

all the persons who have allowed this PhD to develop in an equal engagement with the

fields of environmental engineering and anthropology, and to those who have

supported, and also challenged, these cross-current studies.

My first thanks go to my supervisors Jörg Imberger and Sandy Toussaint, for their

belief that I could make contributions within and beyond their disciplines of expertise.

My individual thanks to each of them and others follow, along a rough chronological

thread. Acknowledgements specific to each paper, including related to funding, are

respectively included in Chapters 3 to 6 – after completion of the papers I benefited

from a SIRF and a Completion scholarship from The University of Western Australia

(UWA) to finalise this thesis.

I first want to thank Jörg Imberger for seeing a potential PhD student in me after a

chance encounter at World Water Week in August 2007 in Stockholm, and for inspiring

xviii

me to apply for a scholarship to study at UWA. I also thank him for introducing me to

the research and people at the Centre for Water Research (CWR), where I started my

PhD later that year under his supervision and that of Jason Antenucci (CWR) and Sandy

Toussaint (Anthropology), whose influence on me and my work I address below. I

acknowledge Jörg for his often challenging, always thought-provoking supervision,

through which I learnt much, including about myself.

I acknowledge all CWR students and staff members for their help through the

sometimes difficult, often fun and always interesting times I had researching, learning

and writing about lake hydrodynamics. I would like to extend particular thanks to the

people who are behind much of the administrative and technical work that supported my

research there, especially Greg Attwater, Carol Lam, Casper Boon and Chris Dallimore

for their prodigious work with data and models. I also acknowledge Diego Copetti,

Nicolas Guyennon, Margherita Canepa and Sabrina Zaffaroni for their help from Italy,

particularly with data. I am very grateful to Jason Antenucci for his availability and

acute advice, as he co-supervised my work up until early 2010. I also thank my CWR

officemate Daniel Machado, and fellow students Sebastian Morillo, Ryan Alexander,

Kenji Shimizu and, especially, Patricia Okely for their friendly assistance at various

stages of my studies, which took many different and always helpful forms.

As months went by I became more and more interested in combining the science of

water bodies developed at CWR with analyses of their meanings as places where life

unfolds, a topic that is addressed by (among others) the field of environmental

anthropology to which I was introduced by my supervisor Sandy Toussaint. I was

excited by the possibility to work across these different traditions of knowledge and,

with the support of UWA, I jointly enrolled in Anthropology early in 2010. I am

grateful to the Graduate Research School of UWA for facilitating this process, and I

want to thank Sandy for seeing in me the potential to contribute relevant

anthropological inquiries and analyses when all the credentials I had were keen

enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity. I am grateful for her patient guidance as I learnt to

navigate this new field, and for her unwavering support through many periods of doubt.

I also extend my thanks to the School of Social and Cultural Studies and the Discipline

of Anthropology, especially Nick Harney, for trusting her and welcoming me as a

student.

xix

My experience with anthropology would have remained theoretical without data and

thus, without the people who shared their words, work and stories with me. I first thank

all Como residents who responded to my questions about their Lake, directly and

through the questionnaire that La Provincia di Como helpfully circulated. Second, I

acknowledge all the people who have engaged with me while I was conducting

ethnographic fieldwork by and on the Lake, including those who do not appear in this

dissertation, for they nonetheless contributed to defining my work. Finally, I am

particularly grateful to Massimo Pirovano, and to the Lake’s fishers who shared some of

their experiences of the Lake and allowed me to write about them: thank you, especially

the Sala family, for taking me on board, for your time, your trust and your stories. I

extend loving thanks to Laura, Lorenzo and Francesca for providing the emotional and

culinary support of a family, away from my French and Australian homes.

Beyond the context of my studies but relevantly to them, I thank Keith Frost (and

human & equine associates) for giving me the best way to put the bumpy ride of a PhD

into perspective. To my friends overseas, especially the Musketeers, thank you for

continuing to support and inspire me despite years without a word (and thank you

Chiara for being worse than me at that). To my friends in Perth, especially Robi, thank

you for putting up with my frustrations and sharing the rest - for your comforting

presence, on and off campus. Finally, I cannot thank enough my family, for their

unconditional trust in me and my choices, including those that take me far away from

them; and Sean for his overwhelming resilience and support - ‘on my team’ every day

of these four years.

xxi

Preface and candidate statement

This thesis has been completed during the course of studies and research towards the

degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Western Australia (UWA), with a

joint-enrolment between the Centre for Water Research (CWR) and the Discipline of

Anthropology. This work and has not previously been accepted for a degree at this or

another institution.

Four papers (Chapters 3-6), written for journal publication, formed the result of this

research across several academic fields. Each chapter links into the main argument of

the thesis, but may also be read as a standalone manuscript that includes an abstract,

literature review, methods, results, discussion, conclusions, and references. Two of the

papers are strongly polarised in what is usually thought of as opposite edges of the

academic research spectrum: the physical geosciences (Chapter 3) and the humanities

(Chapter 6). The other two papers attempt to bridge these fields and address a broader

audience (Chapters 4 and 5).

Chapter 1 is introductory and presents the thesis problem, the motivation for the study

and a literature review that locates the thesis within its academic context. This chapter

also provides a thesis outline and a summary of each paper, together with an overview

of its contributions within the field for which it was written, as well as broader thesis

content. Each summary aims to link the individual papers with each other, and guide the

reader through the disciplinary assumptions in each paper.

Chapter 2 presents an explanation of methods, linking the methodologies used in each

paper to emphasise the chronological evolution of how the research was undertaken.

Chapter 7 presents my interpretation of the integrated results from Chapters 3 to 6, and a

reflection about the process and aims of an integrated approach to environmental

research. Chapter 8 discloses thesis conclusions and implications.

This thesis is entirely based on my own original research, although I was guided by my

supervisors at UWA: Jörg Imberger (Chapters 3 and 4) from CWR, and Sandy

Toussaint (Chapters 4, 5 and 6) from the Discipline of Anthropology and the Centre of

Excellence for Natural Resource Management. Chapter 3 consists of a paper that is also

xxii

co-authored by Jason Antenucci who was, at the time, my co-supervisor at CWR; and

by Diego Copetti from the Istituto di Ricerche sulle Acque (IRSA) in Brugherio (Italy),

who contributed data and ideas to the study. I conducted the analyses and wrote the

paper, with the aforementioned co-authors and Jörg Imberger providing edits. Each

paper has also benefited from the valuable comments provided by anonymous

reviewers. Three of the papers are published (Laborde et al. 2010 [Chapter 3], Laborde

et al. 2012 [Chapter 4]) and Laborde et al. 2012 [Chapter 5]) the last one is being

revised for resubmission to the journal where it was first submitted1 (Chapter 6).

Permission has been granted by all co-authors to include the research in this thesis.

Sarah Laborde Prof. Sandy Toussaint Prof. Jörg Imberger

1 Chapters 3, 4 and 5 might bear minor differences with the corresponding journal articles that were published respectively in Limnology and Oceanography, Ecology and Society and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA– this is because the pre-publication editorial changes to the manuscripts proofs were not integrated to the thesis chapters.

CHAPTER 1. Introduction

1

Chapter 1 Thesis problem and theoretical context

1.1 Introductory emphasis

This chapter presents the thesis problem and it provides a plan of the thesis with a

summary of the four papers that constitute its core. To start with, consider the following

extract from a text written by Giovanni Bertacchi, who was a poet and also a fisherman,

about Lake Como, or Lario, as my field site is known locally:

And this is how I fed in my heart the passion for the Lake, exercised from day to day and from use to use. This arm of the Lario little by little was mine, and I was his, seduced by the slow charms of a current so gentle. So, when the heavy rain fell onto my home, I found myself with the senses ready and the heart prepared, poet of my lake and fisherman. (...) In this long custom of humble and calm things I solitary measured life on immutable paths. I rowed for years, and for years I fished, re-travelling hour by hour the distances covered, jointly with the water and the aerial string of my memories and of the tirlindana2. (…) I saw these things without looking at them. These slow scenes entered in my senses unnoticed, as I was going about rowing and fishing, and they became love. (Giovanni Bertacchi ‘Quel ramo del Lago di Como’, cited in Brembilla and Valpolini 1999: 38 - my translation)

2 The tirlindana is a piece of fishing equipment composed of a long string on which several hooks are attached


2

Bertacchi’s poem, which was too long to include here in its entirety, expresses his way

of relating to, and knowing, Lake Como: through perceptions, thoughts and emotions

generated by his frequent use of the Lake when rowing and fishing there. Such

experiential knowledge crystallises a way of understanding and knowing the Lake that

is shared by many of the Lake Como fishers among whom I conducted research. Such

practical knowingness and familiarity may be, in many ways, associated with what has

been described as a love of place, or to the notion of ‘topophilia’, as highlighted by

geographer Yi-Fu Tuan (1974). It is situated, embodied, and can generally be contrasted

with another form of lake knowledge evident in the quote below, which was extracted

from my own work published in Limnology and Oceanography (Chapter 3):

Lake Como is large (50 km long), deep (425 m), narrow, and elongated, extending in the north–south direction (Fig. 1). A seasonal thermocline develops in the lake from midspring (Fig. 2A) with the increasing solar radiation and subsequent aggregation of diurnal thermoclines. The seasonal thermocline then deepens to reach 40 m in late autumn as the surface cooling and wind speeds progressively increase (Laborde et al. 2010: 1).

This description expresses a different way of understanding Lake Como. The text is

necessarily scientific and based on an accumulation of impersonal claims about the

Lake’s physical characteristics. The information is quantified and in the paper it is

associated with a map showing the Lake’s outline, its depth contours, orientation and

latitude. The technical words and the type of detail presented ensure that the information

is limited to a readership of experts in a particular field.

Both statements assert knowledge about the same lake. Their juxtaposition raises an

emphasis that is the premise of this thesis, which is that knowledge of an environment

can be expressed in a variety of ways. Starting from this point, this thesis explores the

space that lies at the intersection between ways of knowing a lake environment as a

scientist, and as an anthropologist who works as an interlocutor with local people.

Because the thesis spans across disciplines that are usually considered to be in

opposition, and because is it constituted of four original papers, content might at times

appear fragmented. In this introduction, I therefore aim to bring the reader’s attention to

the unifying analytical themes. Each study emerged from my engagement with the same


3

environmental system (Lake Como) and the four papers address the same overarching

notion of environmental knowledge and the question of its emergence in different

contexts, albeit from the perspective of various disciplines. Not only were these

inquiries relevant to both environmental and social sciences, but also to the application

of diverse understandings of environmental systems more broadly, such as in

environmental management.

1.2 The thesis problem

Few themes are as prominent in contemporary political, scientific and every day socio-

cultural discourses as the many ways of knowing, using, transforming or conserving

‘natural’ environments. At a local level, people who live in natural environments

throughout the world have developed ways to find resources (such as food, water,

shelter) and to avoid hazards (such as floods or fires), which are specific to the

particular environment they live in (Morán 2008). Today however, most people live in

concentrated urban settings3, physically remote from the land and water-scapes that

produce the resources they use. In this context the responsibility of environmental

management is often delegated to experts. In the environmental field experts are

generally considered to be environmental scientists who work at describing and

predicting environmental systems, or environmental engineers who design and

implement modifications to these, often in response to objectives defined by

environmental managers (yet another kind of environmental expert) who work at the

intersection of political, governmental and scientific domains.

Environmental systems thus provide a nexus of complex interactions, and sometimes

contests, over development, resources and livelihood, as different social groups hold

distinct understandings, meanings, interests, and uses for the land and water they rely on

for resources. Such friction, documented by Toussaint (2008) for water places in

Australia exists practically everywhere in the world and across scales (Tsing 2005)

varying from the local (e.g. conflicts over the use of a stream’s water) to the global (e.g.

3 In 2010, the proportion of urban dwellers reached more than 50% of people on Earth (UN-Habitat 2010)


4

regulations on carbon emissions), and its occurrence between technical experts and local

inhabitants of environments has been emphasised (Orlove 1991; Devine Wright and

Howes 2010).

To these issues, environmental science and engineering contribute knowledge of

environmental systems dynamics, and ultimately ways to alter them to optimise

resource use and/or hazard prevention for the benefit of various social groups. The

aspects that are sought to be optimised are often called ecosystem services or functions

in this context (e.g. Bennett et al. 2009). The marks of such work on society at large are

seen through the shaping of environmental decision-making and policy. This approach

provides a way, through standards, scaling and modelling, to compare processes for

systems of the same class (such as flow rate patterns for a river, storage volumes for a

reservoir etc.) and thus to learn from what has happened in other systems and at other

times. It also reveals specific aspects and patterns across time and space scales that may

not be observed directly at the scale of a human life, provided there are relevant data to

analyse (such as 100 year flood records or nutrient fluxes in the hypolimnion of a deep

lake), and it leads to increasingly sophisticated, partly mobile knowledge of the

relationships and feedback mechanisms between components of environmental systems.

For these reasons, studies of environmental science and engineering appear instrumental

for the constant development of sustainable livelihoods.

However, the contribution of environmental science and engineering to these issues is

limited by a focus on the biophysical dimensions of environments while often assuming

that the objectives to target are relatively straightforward. In other words, taking for

granted the idea that what should be achieved is material progress and growth, for it is

generally associated with social progress (or at least that material wellbeing is what

science and engineering are about, and that its connection with social progress should be

addressed by others, such as politicians). However, as noted previously, environmental

systems are often relevant to the livelihood of social groups with various interests,

knowledges and values. The functions or services that such systems provide then take

various forms depending on the perspective they are judged from, and conflicts may

result. More than biogeophysical insight is thus needed to achieve environmentally and

socially sustainable livelihoods: research focusing on the socio-cultural and historical


5

dimensions of what constitutes ‘environments’, in other words people, their

relationships with each other and the world around them, is also relevant.

To reflect on these issues, a range of academic disciplines and practices has developed a

focus on environmental knowledge beyond its technical dimension. It has become, for

instance, an important field of inquiry in the humanities and social sciences (for

example through environmental anthropology, philosophy, history, art and ecocriticism)

and the behavioural and political sciences (environmental psychology, sociology,

policy, economics etc.). As a result, and mirroring the diversity of environmental

perceptions and values in socio-cultural life, the environment has become central to

various academic lines of thought, definitions, understandings and implications, a point

I return to in the data and methods section. Among these, environmental anthropology

has addressed a range of relevant topics since the early 20th century, inquiring into

human-environment interactions through a variety of socio-cultural contexts from

indigenous environmental knowledge to western scientific standpoints. A major focus

of the field has been the power relations embedded in such different traditions of

environmental knowledge and their social, cultural and political implications (e.g.

Escobar 1999; Williams 2000; Strang 2009).

Overall, while a great deal of academic research effort has been devoted to producing

new environmental knowledge (e.g. in natural science, environmental engineering) to

interpreting the knowledge of various social groups (for instance through ethnoscience)

and to analyse complex situations where environmental knowledge is interwoven with

power struggles (environmental anthropology and sociology), less attention has been

paid to investigating the nature of environmental knowledge in multiple forms across

disciplines.

This thesis explores this issue via the study site of Lake Como, through an argument

intertwined around the following questions:

• What kind of environmental knowledge emerges from techno-scientific analyses

of an environmental system, and how does it differ from the experiential knowledge

of its local inhabitants?


6

• On which epistemological grounds can these bodies of knowledge be treated as

complementary, or even be integrated (and what is the difference)?

• How is the concept of ‘place’ relevant to multilayered exploration of environmental knowledge production? And

• How can an emphasis on concepts of place and theories about practice support the integration of diverse bodies of knowledge about the environment?

I describe the processes and outcomes of an inter-disciplinary dialogue between

anthropology and environmental science and engineering around these questions, an

interaction between and among fields that could have taken place in a pluri-disciplinary

team open to a mixed methods emphasis and a reflexive approach. Concrete research

projects in limnology and anthropology, all focused on Lake Como, are presented,

analysed and eventually integrated, a point I return to in the Methods section below.

1.3 Definitions and theories: untangling words and practices

1.3.1 On the environment and knowledge

Certain notions used throughout the thesis require clarification. It is the case first of the

term ‘environment’, which may be interpreted in various ways. A first sense of the term

is relative to one particular organism and it describes its direct surrounding, what affects

its individual existence. This emphasis continues to be used but it has been superseded,

especially in political discourses, by a more general sense referring to ‘the natural world

or physical surroundings in general, either as a whole or within a particular geographical

area, especially as affected by human activity’ (Oxford English Dictionary [OED]

online 2011). In other words, ‘nature’ and its non-human components - land, water, air,

plants and animals – become, as parts of environments or environmental systems,

objects of study and, in relation to my focus, interventions for environmental scientists

and engineers.

In practice, these two definitions coalesce in many instances. Messages that embody

scientific facts and concerns for the ‘global environment’ have permeated various socio-

cultural contexts, individual lives and identities. Similarly, all discourses surrounding a

‘global environment’ are informed by their subjectivity, a matter dealt with extensively


7

in anthropology (Escobar 1998; Harper 2001). One’s definition of a lake environment,

for instance, will flow from their previous phenomenological and/or imagined

experiences of lakes, depending on the context in which such knowledge has emerged.

Mindful of these ambiguities, I return to the multiple senses of the term and their

implications in more depth in Chapter 6. To start with, however, and consistent with the

chronological evolution of this thesis, I apply the definition that is in agreement with a

basic and tacit assumption of environmental science and engineering, that a natural

environment is a biogeophysical system that does not originate from (but may have

been transformed by to a certain extent) human activity, and is defined in relation to the

socio-cultural groups for whom it is relevant. I use the notion of ‘environmental system’

to emphasise the relationships and connectedness of various elements of an environment

(such as the physics, ecology and fish productivity of a lake).

Other nuances that ought to be clarified are between the academic fields of

environmental science and engineering, which largely overlap. I am an environmental

engineer by qualification and experience and my engagement in relation to the scientific

study of Lake Como was with the Centre for Water Research (CWR), which conducts

research in ‘natural systems engineering’ (CWR Website > About CWR). However, the

outcomes of this part of my PhD study, especially as reported in Chapter 3, pertained

more to environmental science. The distinction, as I understand and apply it in this

thesis, is that environmental science is more focused on increasing understanding of

processes in natural systems, while environmental engineering is more committed to

enhancing these environments for societal benefits, thus conducting research that has

relatively direct and concrete applications. There is nevertheless no clear-cut boundary

between science and engineering in this context, and some aspects of my research were

still clearly inscribed in an engineering approach. This is true for instance of the use of

numerical modelling, especially of numerical approximations to solve systems of

equations with no exact solutions (such as the Navier-Stokes equations, system of

nonlinear partial differential equations solved by ELCOM). When the perspective that

emerged from this hybrid science-engineering engagement is compared to that which

came forth through my engagement with the social sciences, I simply refer to

‘environmental science and engineering’ as a combination of fields studying

environmental systems with the aim to understand, predict and/or modify them.


8

Finally, I consider in this thesis that knowledge, following Barth, is ‘what a person

employs to interpret and act on the world’ (2002:1) and that it comes in various kinds

(Turnbull 2003). This might be illustrated by the example of the influence of the earth’s

gravity on motion, which, on the one hand humans and animals learn about through

experience (by learning to move, jump, fall, carry things etc.), and on the other may be

described in a quantified and formalised way in classical mechanics through for instance

Newton’s law of gravitation: both are forms of knowledge of the same phenomenon.

I am thus not concerned here about notions of absolute truth wth regards to knowledge,

but rather about accuracy, knowledge that is consistent with empirical observations and

that ‘works’ in the context of its usage. In the natural sciences such an epistemological

position is shared by researchers who function in a positivist framework but reject

scientific realism and in anthropology, with scholars like Escobar (1999) who navigate

somewhere between the epistemological extremes of realism and relativism.

Environmental knowledge thus encompasses here, among other ways of knowing, the

understandings produced by environmental science and engineering as well as

experiential, practical ways of knowing environments and anthropological knowledge

derived from these. Also, and like Russell (1948), Barth (2002) includes in the

definition of knowledge the notion of inference that is what we learn from others

outside of our own direct experience – this is important for scientific knowledge, which

grows from the formulations and descriptions that the previous generations made of the

world, and for local knowledge, which also relies on learning from previous generations

through socialisation and education, but also tools and artefacts.

1.3.2 Scientific, local, traditional, indigenous knowledges

A mix of terms has been used to distinguish the various traditions of knowledge, and a

scholastic debate has been underway for several decades (Kuper 2003; Raymond et al.

2010). Here I clarify my usage of some of this terminology, starting with scientific

knowledge. This might seem counterintuitive and somewhat symptomatic of the way

local knowledge is being addressed now in academic discourse (in relation and

secondary to scientific knowledge), but it is simply to reflect my own chronological


9

experience with ‘knowing the Lake’ and the evolution in my thinking throughout the

doctoral research process.

The question of what defines scientific knowledge is contentious (Nader 1996);

however in the context of this thesis the term ‘science’ designates the commonality in

notions of science that are embedded in the natural science and engineering teachings of

most universities around the World4: science is a particular tradition of knowledge that

emphasise the systematic study of the natural world through the development of

hypotheses and tests, with the aim to develop general principles about the world. The

term ‘knowledge’ is used here more generally, as defined in the previous section. In this

context, it is widely agreed that science is a form of knowledge that is recorded through

time and based on systematic measurement and experiment to formulate and test

hypotheses (OED 2011). It is largely founded on the existence and promotion of

standards (procedures, units, forms of communication), which makes it highly mobile

(O'Connell 1993). Local knowledge in turn is generally defined in contrast to scientific

knowledge, to highlight a way of knowing a local environment that has not been

formalised or generalised. It is embedded in the practices of local inhabitants of this

environment, their stories and artefacts. Local and scientific knowledge often operate on

different scales, both temporal and spatial, a point that has been emphasised as a major

angle of interest for their integration (Robertson and McGee 2003; Gagnon and

Berteaux 2009).

Many scholars who have studied science in the making would argue here that scientific

knowledge is also produced in local, specific places (Latour and Woolgar 1986;

Turnbull 2003) through specific practices that include a tacit component (Polanyi 1969).

The same can be argued for traditional knowledge, often regarded as being embedded in

socio-cultural contexts, spanning across many generations and in constant evolution.

This definition also has parallels with both scientific and local knowledge (Agrawal

1995; Pickering 1992; Latour 2005). Mindful of possible ambiguities in my use of this

4 The term ‘western science’ often used by anthropologists to characterise what I call here ‘academic science’, seemed particularly inappropriate in my case as I dealt with comparisons between different forms of knowledge in Italy. The concept of ‘western science’ is nebulous: it most often designates the type of science that evolved from the so-called ’scientific revolution’ in Western Europe during the Renaissance, of which Italy was an important part.


10

terminology, I nevertheless use the term ‘local knowledge’ as distinct from academic

science because I wish to emphasize the spatial dimension of multiple ways of knowing

environmental systems. Such usage does not indicate that I consider the fishers’

knowledge as immobile and isolated from scientific knowledge. Likewise, this

terminological distinction is not a claim that scientific knowledge is disembedded from

the arrays of local contexts, practices and social networks within which it is produced.

The complexities of these epistemological-spatial questions are further explored in

Chapter 6.

The concept of ‘place’ is prominent throughout most thesis chapters, introduced from

several disciplinary angles via notions of spatiality, practice and knowledge-production

that are theorized and reflected upon in Chapters 6 and 7. In many ways, ‘place’ acts as

an additional, unifying thread, crystallising a reflection on the practices of knowledge

production that, I argue, presents an opportunity to integrate local and scientific

knowledge.

An introduction to each of the four papers that constitute the core of this thesis follows.

It provides the specifics of each paper, the context of its production, its thesis

contribution. A ‘table of contents’ illustration aimed at giving the reader a quick visual

impression of the content of each paper, without providing specific results (hence the

scales and legends do not appear on these illustrations, while they appear in the figures

of the paper itself) has also been included.

1.4 Overview of the original papers (Chapters 3 to 6)

1.4.1 Paper 1: CHAPTER 3

• Authors: Sarah Laborde, Jason Antenucci, Diego Copetti and Jörg Imberger

• Title: Inflow intrusions at multiple scales in a large temperate lake

• Journal: Limnology and Oceanography

• Status: Published in 2010, 55(3): 1301–1312


11

• Personal contribution: Conducted analyses and modelling, wrote the paper

The first paper is fully grounded in the field of physical limnology. It assumes that the

reader has a background in environmental fluid dynamics and a familiarity with the

relevant literature. It is the result of work that I conducted between January 2008 and

November 2009, as an environmental engineering student at CWR at The University of

Western Australia (UWA) in Perth, Australia, under the supervision of Jörg Imberger

and Jason Antenucci. It was dominated by numerical data analysis (predominantly using

the software MATLAB®) and numerical modelling with the Estuary Lake and Coastal

Ocean Model (ELCOM), to examine the basin-scale circulation and fate of inflow

intrusions in Lake Como. The paper was well received and published in Limnology and

Oceanography in 2010. Its contribution to my thesis is threefold and described below.

First, it is what it appears to be: a stand-alone physical limnology paper focused on the

interplay between different scales of inflows to Lake Como and other forcings on the

flow field such as the morphology of the basin and the wind patterns. As such, it is a

contribution to the scientific knowledge of lakes as it provides new insights on the fate

of inflows in a large temperate lake. This is relevant to lake ecology since the material

drained from the catchment and contained in river and stream inflows may be a source

of nutrients that foster production in the Lake, and/or of pollutants that may affect it.

The paper suggests that more attention should be given to the possible consequences of

changes in inflow regimes for lake hydrodynamics and thereby lake metabolism – an

issue that is very relevant in the current context of climate change.

Second, the work carried out for this paper was the basis for the research question that

led, a year later, to the study reported in Chapter 5 (Fishing nets and data loggers:

contributions of local knowledge to physical limnology) where I explored the local

socio-cultural relevance, and knowledge, of the Lake’s hydrodynamics.

Third, material documenting the research period that led to this paper was then used in

turn as ethnographic (and auto-ethnographic) data to support the reflection presented in

Chapter 6 (The making and meaning of environmental knowledge: a fisherman, a

limnologist and an Italian lake).


12

Figure 1. ‘Table of contents’ image of Paper 1. (source: the model impression on the top left is from the

CWR website).


• Authors: Sarah Laborde, Jörg Imberger and Sandy Toussaint

• Title: A wall out of place: a hydrological and socio-cultural analysis of physical

changes to the lakeshore of Como, Italy

• Journal: Ecology and Society

Status: Published in 2012, 17(1): 33. Open access: http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-04610-170133

• Personal contribution: Designed and conducted socio-cultural data collection,

conducted all data analyses, wrote the paper

This paper was conceptualised and written for the most part in 2010 immediately after

the physical limnology study from which the first paper emerged. It is concerned with

catchment hydrology, flood risk in Como and people’s relationship to the lakeshore, and

it is based on a failed engineering intervention on the lakeshore that led to a social

movement. It was my first attempt to link the physical sciences (in this case hydrology)


13

and the social sciences (environmental psychology and anthropology) in a standalone

study. It is thus the first paper of my thesis to include analyses from the social sciences,

marking a turning point in the work carried out throughout my PhD candidature.

Its thematic focus somewhat casts it away from the three other papers that are focused

on the Lake’s internal hydrodynamics. However, I chose to include it in the thesis and

leave it in second position because it marks both a trajectory and transition between the

natural sciences and the anthropological analyses carried out, in particular, in Chapter 6.

In this second paper I address a socio-cultural dimension of an engineering intervention

related to lake flooding, although mainly with remote techniques (quantitative, through

a web questionnaire and qualitative, through textual analysis). The idea for this study

came from an event I witnessed when I was in Como for some exploratory fieldwork in

October 2009. A public protest took place because a flood protection structure that was

being built on the city’s lakeshore obscured views of the Lake. The structure was

eventually dismantled (early 2010), and the case seemed to me of particular interest

because it mixed issues pertaining to hydrology (the frequency of flood events, changes

in the catchment’s hydrological cycle), water management (flood prevention choices,

nexus of water uses in the catchment affecting the flood regime, such as hydropower

production and irrigation) and people’s relationship with the Lake and its city shoreline

(that had obviously played a role in the citizens’ reaction to the structure).

I had been thinking of the relevance of the notion of ‘place’ for a while and had started

exploring the literature related to attachments to place (‘sense of place’), because it

seemed like an obvious link between the technical and socio-cultural dimensions of

environmental studies. I thus decided to seize the opportunity of this event and to use it

as a focus for investigating the delicate interplay of technical and cultural matters in

environmental policy - in this case catchment management and flood prevention. The

contributions of this paper to the thesis are twofold and described below.

First, it articulates a methodological transition between the natural and the social

sciences. Socio-cultural analyses are conducted remotely based on letters and web-

questionnaire responses, as well as, to some extent, recollections and field notes from

two weeks on site as I became aware of the issue and started exploring its implications.

Realisation of the limitations of this mainly ‘out of place’ approach encouraged me to


14

undertake ethnographic fieldwork for the last two studies of this thesis.

Second, it shows the complementary nature of the physical and social sciences in a

context of environmental policy. This is an important dimension of environmental

knowledge, since environmental policy strives to articulate bridges between different

traditions of knowledge, different ‘rationalities’ (Fisher 2000).

Figure 2. ‘Table of contents’ image of Paper 2. (source: the picture on the bottom left is my own, the

poster on the bottom right was to announce the first public manifestation in response to the structure).


15


• Authors: Sarah Laborde, Jörg Imberger and Sandy Toussaint

• Title: Fishing nets and data loggers: contributions of local knowledge to physical

limnology

• Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the USA

• Status: Published in 2012: 109(17): 6441

• Personal contribution: Designed study, conducted socio-cultural data collection,

conducted all data analyses and modelling, wrote the paper

This third paper is shorter than the other three. Written soon after returning from

ethnographic fieldwork with the fishers of Lake Como (August to November 2011), it

addresses the potential contributions of local knowledge to the physical geosciences,

through the example of Lake Como’s hydrodynamics. It is written mainly for

environmental scientists, although it is intelligible to a much broader scientific audience

than the first paper, as it does not assume prior familiarity with the physical limnology

literature. It does however assume some familiarity with basic notions of environmental

fluid dynamics.

The study looks at the potential benefits of local knowledge from the perspective of

environmental science. It is not intended to raise epistemological questions and does not

question the relative place of local knowledge with regard to scientific knowledge or the

natural science framework and classical approach to problem solving (hypothesis

building, hypothesis testing). Instead, it aims to show environmental scientists that

within the framework of knowledge production they are familiar with, local knowledge

may be very useful even for geophysical systems (this emphasis is common for

ecological systems [Haggan et al. 2007], but rare in discussions about their physical

dimension).

The paper opens with some background on the limnology of Lake Como. It then

presents some of the fishers’ practices and rules of thumbs that reveal sophisticated

knowledge of hydrodynamic processes in the Lake. It then turns to using some of the


16

qualitative interview and participatory mapping data gathered with the fishers to build a

hypothesis with regards to mid-scale horizontal processes in the superficial layers of the

Lake. The hypothesis is then verified using numerical modelling, and the paper

concludes that local knowledge may be a source of valuable data for environmental

scientists, especially as its typical scales (spatial and temporal) differ from the usual

scientific monitoring scales. The contributions of this paper in the context of the thesis

are threefold and described below.

First, it describes and documents fishers’ knowledge of lake hydrodynamics,

particularly longitudinal internal wave and gyres. Local knowledge of such processes

has not been documented elsewhere in the literature, to the best of my knowledge.

Second, it provides an empirical case of integration of local and scientific knowledge

and, third, it triggered the concerns that led to the reflection at the origin of the fourth

paper: The making and meaning of environmental knowledge: A fisherman, a

limnologist and an Italian lake (Chapter 6). Indeed, while Paper 3 showed that local and

scientific environmental knowledge could be usefully integrated, a number of

epistemological concerns emerged regarding the adoption of a scientific framework and

the knowledge it generated.


17

Figure 3. ‘Table of contents’ image of Paper 3. In the centre is a graphic impression of a drift-net in the

water. (source: pictures are my own, taken during ethnographic fieldwork. They relate to the practice of

drift-net fishing through time).


• Authors: Sarah Laborde

• Title: The making and meaning of environmental knowledge: a fisherman, a

limnologist and an Italian lake

• Journal: American Anthropologist

• Status: In revision for resubmission to American Anthropologist

• Personal contribution: Designed and conducted all data collection and analyses,

wrote the paper


18

This study is written mainly for anthropologists. The work assumes a familiarity with

anthropological concepts and literature, in particular Ingold’s theoretical frameworks

(2000, 2011). The dual engagement with traditions of knowledge of the Lake’s

hydrodynamics was drawn on to ruminate the nature of environmental knowledge itself.

This paper explores claims made by Ingold and others that there is no epistemological

boundary between science and other forms of knowing: forms of knowledge all emerge,

and are instantiated, through practical engagement with a given field of practice or

taskscape. This paper also argues for a pluralistic view of environmental knowledge that

is based on situated practices – a way to engage scientists and local knowledge holders

around places of interest and to support mutual intelligibility of bodies of knowledge.

I first use references about practice theory to show how the production of lake

knowledge in the contexts of academic environmental science and professional lake

fishing may be seen as the product of practical enskillment processes. Such processes

attune the senses and the mind to the environment, as it is known by them. This point is

nicely expressed in the fisherman’s poem that opens this chapter. Such knowledge is of

equal epistemological value in both cases, although they relate to very different

taskscapes. In this sense I draw from Ingold’s helpful definition of taskscapes as fields

of practice embedded in one’s direct environment (biophysical, social). I also emphasise

the difference in these taskscapes as that which leads ultimately to different kinds of

knowledge (scientific, local). I use the concept of ‘heterotopia’ defined by Foucault as

‘localised utopias … counter-places designed to erase, compensate, neutralise and

purify other places’ (Foucault 1966 [Radio Feature, 7 December 1966]). This concept is

applied as an analytical means to discuss the fields of practice of environmental

scientists and engineers in the context of remote, numerical studies. These today are

often conducted in university offices, via computers that ‘process’ data from many other

places. Through comparison with knowledge produced in local place-based

circumstances, one of my concerns is to query the relationship that the producers of

remote scientific knowledge hold with the physical places they aim to describe or

represent (here the lake).


19

Figure 4. ‘Table of contents’ image of Paper 4. (source: pictures are my own, taken during ethnographic

fieldwork).

1.5 Concluding remarks

This chapter has developed the thesis problem, its relevance and literature context. I

have clarified my use of the key terms of environment, knowledge, and the distinction I

adopt between notions of scientific and local knowledge. Finally, I have outlined each

of the original papers. The core of this thesis constituted by Chapters 3 to 6. Chapter 2

reflects on the methodologies adopted throughout my research, and Chapter 7 discusses

its outcomes. Chapter 8 presents conclusions of the analysis.


20

1.6 References

Agrawal, A. 1995. Dismantling the divide between indigenous and scientific

knowledge. Development and Change 26:413-439

Barth, F. 2002. An Anthropology of knowledge. Current Anthropology 43(1):1-18

Bennett, E. M., G. D. Peterson and L. J. Gordon. 2009. Understanding relationships

among multiple ecosystem services Ecology Letters 12:1394–1404

Brembilla, G. and A. Valpolini. 1999. Breva e Tivano Motori Naturali. Associazione

culturale L. Scanagatta: Varenna [Italian]

Centre for Water Research (CWR) [online] URL: http://www.cwr.uwa.edu.au

Devine-Wright, P. and Y. Howes. 2010. Disruption to place attachment and the

protection of restorative environments: A wind energy case study. Journal of

Environmental Psychology 30(3) 271–280

Escobar, A. 1998. Whose knowledge, whose nature? Biodiversity, conservation, and the

political ecology of social movements. Journal of political ecology 5

Escobar, A. 1999 After Nature - Steps to an anti-essentialist political ecology. Current

Anthropology: 40 (1)

Fisher, F. 2000. Citizens, Experts and the environment: The politics of local knowledge.

Duke University Press: USA

Foucault, M. 1966. ‘Les hétérotopies’ - Radio conference, France culture: Culture

Française (December 7, 1966)

Gagnon, C. A. and D. Berteaux. 2009. Integrating traditional ecological knowledge and

ecological science: a question of scale. Ecology and Society 14(2): 19. [online] URL:

http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art19/

Haggan, N., B. Neis and I. G. Baird (Eds.). 2007. Fishers’ knowledge in fisheries

science and management. Edited by Coastal Management Sourcebooks - UNESCO

Publishing: Paris


21

Harper, K. M. 2001. Introduction: The environment as master narrative: discourse and

identity in environmental problems. Anthropological Quarterly 74.3

Ingold, T. 2000 The perception of the environment: essays on livelihood, dwelling and

skill. Routledge: London

Ingold, T. 2011 Being Alive. Routledge: London

Kuper, A. 2003. The return of the native. Current Anthropology 44, 389-402.

Laborde, S., J. Antenucci, D. Copetti and J. Imberger. 2010. Inflow intrusions at

multiple scales in a large temperate lake. Limnology and Oceanography 55(3): 1301–

1312 (Chapter 3 of this thesis)

Latour, B. 2005 [1987] La science en action. Introduction à la sociologie des sciences,

La Découverte, La Découverte-poche. Sciences humaines et sociales [French]

Latour, B. and S. Woolgar. 1986 [1979]. Laboratory Life: the construction of scientific

facts. Princeton University Press, c1986: Princeton, N.J

Morán, E. F. 2008. Human adaptability: an introduction to ecological anthropology –

3rd Ed. Westview Press: Boulder, CO

Nader, L. (Ed.) 1996. Naked science: anthropological inquiry into boundaries, power,

and knowledge. Routledge: New York

O'Connell, J. 1993. Metrology: The creation of universality by the circulation of

particulars. Social Studies of Science. 23 (1): 129-173

Okely, P. N. 2010. Interplay of lake motions and processes affecting horizontal

transport in a range of water bodies. PhD Thesis University of Western Australia,

CWR

Orlove, B. 1991. Mapping reeds and reading maps: The politics of representation in

Lake Titicaca American Ethnologist 18(1):3-38

Oxford English Dictionary [OED]. 2011. [online] URL: http://www.oed.com


22

Pickering, A. (Ed.) 1992. Science as Practice and Culture. Chicago University Press:

Chicago

Polanyi, M. 1969. Knowing and being. University of Chicago Press: Chicago

Raymond, C. M., I. Fazey, M. S. Reed, L. C. Stringer, G. M. Robinson and A. C. Evely.

2010. Integrating local and scientific knowledge for environmental management.

Journal of Environmental Management 91:1766-1777

Robertson, H. A. and T. K. McGee. 2003. Applying local knowledge: the contribution

of oral history to wetland rehabilitation at Kanyapella Basin, Australia. Journal of

Environmental Management 69:275-287.

Russell, B. 1948. Human knowledge – its scope and limits. Simon and Schuster: New

York

Strang, V. 2009. Gardening the world - Agency, identity, and the ownership of water.

Berghahn Books: New York

Toussaint, S. 2008. Kimberley friction: Complex attachments to water-places in

northern Australia. Oceania 78:46-61

Tsing, A. 2005. Friction: An ethnography of global connection. Princeton University

Press: Princeton

Tuan, Y-F. 1974. Topophilia: a study of environmental perception, attitudes, and

values. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Turnbull, D. 2003 [2000] Masons, tricksters and cartographers: comparative studies in

the sociology of scientific and indigenous knowledge. Routledge: London

UN-Habitat. 2010. State of the World cities 2010/2011. [online] URL:

http://www.unhabitat.org/documents/SOWC10/R7.pdf

Williams, D-M. 2000. Representations of nature on the Mongolian steppe: An

investigation of scientific knowledge construction. American Anthropologist

102(3):503-519

CHAPTER 2. Methodologies

23

Chapter 2 Methodologies, Literature context, and

introduction to the Lake

Every idea is like a place you visit. You may arrive there along

one or several paths, and linger for a while before moving on,

perhaps to circle around and return later. Each time you revisit

the idea it is a little different, enriched by the memories and

experience of your previous stays.

(Ingold and Hallam 2011:8)

2.1 General approach

As stated in the Introduction, a characteristic of my work was to approach the same

environment (in my case, Lake Como) via the vantage point of different disciplines.

Pluri-disciplinarity is here both a means and an end: a way to develop insights about a

water system, and also a goal in and of itself, I was interested in adopting a mixed

methods approach. Some people might ask why and how did an environmental engineer

become interested in the social sciences? It is a question I have often been asked, and it

is one I have often asked myself. There is no simple answer of course, as countless

factors have influenced this evolution in my thinking. One of them was the awareness

that there is a plurality of ways to know the world around us (Turnbull 2003). Another

was a form of frustration with the self-imposed limits of most academic fields, which, as

some may argue, have evolved for a reason and serve a particular purpose, but others

may argue, offer opportunities for inter-disciplinary explorations (e.g. Robinson 2008).

It seemed to me that a PhD was a unique opportunity to probe these options.

In this chapter about data and methods, I discuss how I went about this project. I start by

disentangling various concepts related to working across the disciplines and clarifying

how I use terms such as cross-disciplinary, pluri-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary. I


24

then present the study-site first as a water body, a term and perspective often adopted by

environmental scientists and engineers, and I then describe features of the Lake as a

waterscape, which according to Orlove and Caton is a ‘culturally meaningful,

sensorially active place in which humans interact with water and with each other’

(2010: 408). Interwoven in these descriptions are discussions about the methods I used

to access these interrelated conceptualisations of the Lake, from one paper to the next.

Because the use and relevance of each method emerged from the questions prompted by

the previous one, I discuss the methods in the chronological order of their use.

The methods used in the studies are detailed in each one of the relevant chapters. In

particular, specific methods pertaining to environmental fluid dynamics were used in

Chapter 3; while Chapters 4 and 5 were developed using mixed methods encompassing

both the environmental and social sciences, and Chapter 6 inscribed itself in a tradition

of anthropological practice. In the present chapter I am more concerned with the

transitions between these very distinct methodologies, their flow within the thesis, and

the epistemological grounds on which they stand.

2.2 Terminology: mangle of prefixes

There is a call worldwide for more inter-disciplinary academic and applied research. I

have aimed, through my doctoral study, to contribute to this growing emphasis. In

practice, work across various disciplinary boundaries is not new: it has occurred in the

past and its process and outcomes have been variously considered and applied (OECD

1972). The choice of terminology is itself delicate when undertaking work across

disciplines, whilst trying to maintain the integrity of each. Limnology for instance is a

pluri-disciplinary field: it combines the study of lake physics (climate, hydrodynamics),

chemistry, ecology and biology (among which studies of aquatic plants, bacteria,

phytoplankton, zooplankton and fish). This does not mean that physical and ecological

limnologists always work together – their sub-fields are simply encompassed by the

field of limnology. And if they were to work together on a common issue, say, the

relationship between rates of hydrodynamic dispersion and algal productivity in a lake,

they would be likely to reach quite rapidly a shared understanding of the issue to work

on, and then contribute different skills to it within a commonly-defined framework.


25

Working across the natural sciences and the humanities, however, takes another level of

difficulty as epistemological and methodological concerns emerge, which must be

addressed (Toussaint 2005; Jolly and Kavanagh 2009).

Terms formed with a prefix followed by the root word ‘disciplinary’ suggest different

ways to work with several disciplines and, while not clearly defined, these terms tend to

refer to different levels of integration. Multi-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary are the

terms most commonly used (Strathern 2007), involving several disciplines but not the

integration of vision or methods between them. Insights from different disciplines are

simply juxtaposed or, in the case of cross-disciplinary, examined through each other’s

lens. This is the approach adopted in Chapter 4: the work pertaining respectively to the

environmental and social sciences was conducted somewhat independently (although

this raises methodological concerns, addressed later in this chapter, because I was the

same researcher conducting the studies), and the outcomes were integrated in a

discussion of environmental planning. The methods were, however, inscribed in the

traditions of different fields, and they did not overlap.

A next level of integration is inter-disciplinarity (Strathern 2007; Jolly and Kavanagh

2009), which is exemplified in Chapter 5. In this paper, the results of the scientific study

presented in Chapter 3 first influenced the ethnographic fieldwork and the co-creation of

knowledge with the fishers about the Lake’s currents. Insights from the ethnographic

fieldwork in turn influenced the modelling study conducted. The final results,

combining participatory local-knowledge maps and scientific modelling outcomes, thus

constitute the result of a truly inter-disciplinary study where the methods and the aim

were co-defined, and the outcomes co-produced, incrementally across the

environmental and social sciences. The practices of each field thus shaped each other, in

a way that may be compared to Escher’s ‘drawing hands’ as reproduced below (Fig. 5).


26

Figure 5: M.C. Escher. Drawing Hands, 1948. Credits: all M.C. Escher works © 2012 The M.C. Escher

Company - the Netherlands. All rights reserved. Used by permission. www.mcescher.com

Finally, I define Chapter 6 as trans-disciplinary because it is a reflexive attempt to

discuss the nature and the organisation of knowledge produced by different (local and

remote scientific) communities (Lawrence and Després 2004). A summary of the

approach and methods used in each paper may be found in the figure below (Fig. 6).


27

Figure 6: Summary of methods used in the different thesis chapters, and their location on the research

spectrum from quantitative to qualitative research

Another productive way to look at work that engages several disciplines is using the

distinction proposed by Robinson (2008) between issue-based inter-disciplinarity and

discipline-based inter-disciplinarity. In the case he puts forward, the different papers

that comprise this thesis would address different angles: clearly Chapter 4 was issue-

based, as it took its inspiration from a real-life, complex and messy problem that

necessitated the triangulation of various data sources gathered overtime. On the other

hand, Chapters 5 and 6 were disciplinary-focused and the questions they address are not

at present crucial to practical, day-to-day life beyond academic settings. The issues

addressed by Chapter 5 are relative to the hydrodynamics of Lake Como and the results

of the study might be of interest, but will not be of any immediate use, to the fishers

who took part in the research: it contains knowledge that the fishers already have and

use in a practical sense in their daily lives, and it is written for scientific readers.

Chapter 6 is concerned with the nature of environmental knowledge, a question that I

treat as philosophical, as it interrogates human interactions with, and knowledge about,

natural environments – an emphasis that resonates with Ingold’s definition of

anthropological inquiry as ‘philosophy out of doors’ (2008: 83).


28

The different kinds of interactions between disciplinary lines of thought as evident in

readings of Chapters 3 to 6 thus emerged from a dialogue between elements of

environmental and social science that mutually defined, questioned and enriched each

other. These also corresponded to two initially distinct ways of conceptualising the

Lake. I introduce these below.

2.3 Lake Como as a water body

A lake may be considered as a natural system resulting from a combination of

biogeophysical processes that can be described, explained and predicted to some extent

by the standards and laws of science currently prevalent. From this perspective, a lake is

material, physical, well defined and bounded, although interacting with its surroundings.

It has an inner metabolism, influenced by its exchanges with the atmosphere above and

the land below and around it.

A mechanistic description of the workings of such a body of water may stand on a

realist approach to knowledge: one that assumes that the reality of the world transcends

differences in perception and thinking (and thus subjectivity), and that aims to describe

natural processes in a way that is objective, independent of the agent perceiving,

analysing and describing them. Or it may stand on a positivist view, which is not

necessarily concerned with reality as such, but with theories that are judged on their

ability to predict phenomena of the natural world. This is the paradigm within which I

worked in Chapter 3, and it may be argued that this epistemological stance is generally

implicitly adopted by scientists and engineers who apply Newtonian physics in their

work – for while classical mechanics provides empirically robust predictions of the

motion of bodies under various forcings and it is used in countless science and

engineering applications, from a theoretical point of view it has been superseded by

Einstein’s theory of relativity.

The scientific study of lakes and other bodies of fresh inland waters is addressed by the

field of limnology. My interest was in physical limnology, which is concerned with

water motions in lakes and other standing bodies of water, and rests on the theories and

tools of environmental fluid dynamics. These are based on the physical laws of


29

conservation of mass, linear momentum and energy. Fluid dynamics is a branch of

continuum mechanics (itself within classical mechanics), meaning that it assumes a

scale of study that considers the relevant material, in this case the water, as a continuous

medium rather than discrete particles. Under this general framework, the motions of

water in a lake may be studied and modelled accounting for the basin’s morphology and

the lake’s exchanges of water, heat and energy with its surroundings (Fischer et al

1979).

Physical limnology studies are based on the systematic monitoring and analysis of water

and atmosphere properties through time and space, at times and resolutions that may

vary greatly. This approach goes hand in hand with the definition of a domain and scale

of study, and thus the arbitrary definition of boundaries to the environment that will be

studied through the analysis of fluxes across these boundaries. Numerical data relevant

to the domain, today stored and handled with computers, are then examined and

transformed until making sense to the researcher and providing information that

increases understanding about particular processes occurring in the lake or other aquatic

environment. The focus is on processes, not places, and the resulting knowledge aims to

be ‘placeless’ in order to be generalised and transferable. It is developed and exchanged

through (conceptual, numerical and laboratory) models developed from many case

studies originating from different places. Therefore, much of the work may be carried

out remotely from the lake of concern, as long as the data travel from there to the

relevant researcher, and computer. The general approach of data collection and analysis

that was described above also applies to studies of catchment hydrology such as in

Chapter 4, where water fluxes through the Lake Como catchment are addressed based

on precipitations, river flow rates and lake level data.

2.3.1 The Lake

Italy’s Lake Como is of glacial origin and stretches 45 km between the mountain

regions of the Alps in the north and the agro-industrial plains of the Brianza in the

south, and running alongside the Swiss border to the west (Fig. 7). The Lake’s waters

are supplied by an alpine catchment with a peak inflow rate in late spring and early

summer due to snowmelt at high altitudes. The Lake is part of the drainage basin of the


30

Po River of which the Lake’s only outflow, the Adda River (exiting at Lecco at the

southeastern end of the Lake) is a tributary. The flow of water throughout the Adda

catchment is highly regulated, mainly due to of hydropower production and irrigation

for agriculture (Fig. 7).

Figure 7: Lake Como – Left: geographical context5. Right: detail of the catchment

The Lake is long and narrow (between 0.5 and 4.5 km in width), very deep (up to 425

m) and surrounded by mountains that channel regular winds. The Lake’s three arms

extend respectively north (Alto Lago), southeast (ramo di Lecco) and southwest (ramo

di Como), for a total surface of 146 km² and 170 km of intricate shoreline. It is a

temperate lake, and from spring to autumn its waters stratify as a seasonal thermocline

forms, which is a sharp water temperature and density gradient. Waves can run on the

thermocline just as they do at the density interface between air and water, and they

create currents. Because the water density is determined mainly by its temperature, in

stratified lakes vertical water motions can be tracked by monitoring the temperature

changes in the water column. To understand the causes of such motions one needs to

examine them in light of external constraints characterised by meteorological conditions

5 photo: NASA


31

(solar radiations, wind velocity and direction, air temperature and humidity), water

fluxes (inflows, outflows and water level) and the shape of the basin (bathymetry).

2.3.2 Data collection and analysis (relevant to Chapters 3, 4 and 5)

Lake Como was my field site for the study of such water motions in Chapter 3, with

data collection, storage and transfer technology allowing the work to be carried out from

the Perth-based UWA. A 5m-resolution bathymetry of the Lake was obtained through

the National Centre for Research in Italy (CNR), and subsequently digitised to produce

a bathymetric grid. I also obtained outflows, rainfall and water level data for the Lake

through the body responsible for the management of the water level in Lake Como, the

Consorzio dell’Adda. CWR installed three permanent monitoring stations in the Lake

between 2005 and 2007 (which was before I commenced doctoral research).

These stations, called Lake Diagnosis Systems (LDS), provided the main source of data

used in Chapters 3 and 5. They are composed of a steel frame supported by an

arrangement of floats that keep the station stable in windy and wavy conditions. A chain

of thermistors attached to the frame measures the temperature throughout the water

column at varying depth intervals (of the order of 1m for the Lake Como LDS) and

down to 150 m. Meteorological sensors are fitted on the emerged part of the frame and

measure air temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, and solar global and net

radiations. These stations were located at strategic points, at the extremity of each end

of the Lake, to best document longitudinal internal waves. Data recorded with 1 min

resolution were transmitted via satellite in near real-time and imported into Matlab

format at CWR in Perth.

I took part in a one-day field-monitoring campaign in 2008 with a group of Italian

researchers from IRSA-Brugherio, which is a partner of CWR in the study of the Lake.

It consisted of taking water column profiles of temperature and conductivity (CTD

‘drop-in’ profiler), as well as biochemical variables such as pH, oxygen and chlorophyll

concentration (fluoroprobe), following a route (longitudinal and transversal profiles)

pre-established by the researcher responsible for the campaign, Dr. Diego Copetti, and

adjusted according to the real-time results of the measurements. I did not use these data


32

directly in my analysis but those from a prior campaign conducted similarly by the same

team, and it was thus useful to practically participate in that campaign.

I conducted most of the data analysis using the software Matlab, both for Chapters 3 and

4. Most datasets consisted in time series (temperature, meteorological variables, flow

rates, water levels) were checked for consistency and data gaps, then plotted, filtered,

examined to identify patterns or interesting features in the data series. For Chapter 3,

water motions in the Lake were tracked through the analysis of temperature differences

in depth and latitude in the Lake. A more technical description of the methods used may

be found in that chapter.

A very important aspect of data analysis in these contexts of hydrology and physical

limnology was the production and observation of graphs, corroborating the findings of

Latour and Woolgar (1986) who found that graphs, a large part of what they describe as

‘inscriptions’, were the main focus of activity in the laboratory where they conducted

ethnographic fieldwork. Graphs make available to the eye what is normally invisible,

whether it is patterns of lake level variations over centuries (Chapter 4) or some aspect

of the Lake’s subsurface thermal structure (Chapter 3). Much of my work was thus

geared toward the production of graphs, which ultimately constituted the backbones of

Chapter 3 and the hydrology section of Chapter 4. Most meetings with my

environmental engineering supervisors were based on graphs, too (see also Goodwin

1995), and at the early stages of hypothesis building, the ‘raw’ data appeared on these.

Later they displayed modelling results, or data that had been analysed and plotted in a

way to emphasise a particular feature. Graphs were critical to my physical limnology

studies to support learning, reasoning and argument building; later, they helped to raise

theoretical questions regarding how knowledge is constructed, analysed and applied

within system-specific information (Chapter 6; Latour 1990).

2.3.3 Hydrodynamic modelling

Since the hydro-meteorological data combined data sets with (a) high temporal

resolution at discrete spatial locations (permanent in-lake monitoring, river gauges); and

(b) with higher spatial resolutions at discrete times (boat sampling campaigns), I used a


33

numerical model (ELCOM: Hodges et al. 2000) to gain a better combined and three-

dimensional understanding of the transport and mixing processes in the Lake. The

modelling code, like the data-collection instrumentation and some of the processing

programs, was developed at CWR and used by many researchers before me. What was

needed was to set up the model and validate it for Lake Como, to be able to use it in an

exploratory manner with confidence in its ability to simulate the processes of interest in

the actual Lake. This type of numerical models used in physical limnology research and

applications are based on similar theoretical and computational techniques than those

used for weather forecasting. They rely on heavy computation in the case of consequent

domains of analyses, and computers were available at the research centre for the sole

purpose of modelling.

I used that model rather than another, primarily as a result of guidance from CWR

researchers who advised it would be appropriate for my study. It was also a decision of

convenience since it was developed locally and I had access to technical support in case

of a problem. In the end, the model that was developed most specifically to simulate

stratified bodies of water (like Lake Como in summer and autumn, my periods of

interest in Chapters 3 and 5), performed very well. More technical detail on the model

and its validation is provided the relevant Chapters 3 and 5.

Numerical models have a tremendous scaling power and can process extensive

information through a combination (by computation) of the formalised knowledge

embedded in the model, the tacit knowledge of the modeller and the data coming from

the probes; a trend that is increasing as computational power progresses. ELCOM for

instance can calculate and output properties of the water in each cell of the grid –

millions of locations in the virtual lake, for each (virtual) minute. Such numerical

models also facilitate shifts in context between theoretical knowledge and site-specific

data in a much more dramatic way than graphs do, by providing a ‘ready-made’

framework to operate such shifts (e.g. the theoretical knowledge in mathematical form

contained in the model is applied to the system in focus as the model is applied to that

system).

The result of using these methodologies was a vision of the Lake (see Chapter 3), which

was shaped by the cultural and academic practices of CWR (through instrumentation,


34

software, model, socialisation and guidance). It is a picture that aims to be generally

useful for a broad community of scientists and practitioners. The self-stated aim of my

study, which emerged during the process of data analysis, was to improve the

understanding of the fate of inflows to Lake Como, and other lakes to some extent, with

potential applications for management responses to both pollution and climate change

effects, especially relevant in the current context of climatic change (Laborde et al.

2010).

2.4 Lake Como as a waterscape

Lakes considered as water places make room for the subjectivity and situatedness

inherent to the human relationship with these places, which is generally and

purposefully absent from their scientific descriptions as water bodies. Water places are

relevant to socio-cultural life through productive water use (e.g. for agriculture), a

dimension that is at the core of the motivation for environmental engineering, but also

through their meanings and people’s emotions, reflections and day-to-day actions as

individuals or groups. These humanistic dimensions, interwoven with the material and

biophysical dimensions of water places, became central to my thinking and eventually

to this thesis. A description of the Lake that contextualises and encompasses these

dimensions is provided below.

2.4.1 The Lake

The Lake that is today known as Lake Como has another name, its most locally

grounded name: Lario, derived from its Latin name Larius. Populated at least since the

Bronze Age (3000 – 600 BC), it has since absorbed waste and provided food, water and

a route between the Alps to the Po Plain for the people inhabiting its shores. Soft hills

and sharp mountains surround it, and it is sufficiently narrow so that one standing on a

shore can always see the land across the Lake, except on the rare occasions in winter

when thick fog covers the water surface. The variation of light and colour, the shadows

of the mountains and the patterns made by the breeze onto the Lake create an ever-

changing landscape. The water is clear in winter and appears green and blurry in spring


35

and summer because of algae. The colours of the sky and mountain also vary with the

seasons and the weather: a day in October for instance, when the mountains start to

change from dark green to brown and red tones, may be clear and dry, with the

northerly wind blowing cold air from the snow-capped Alps that look almost purple in

the distance. Autumn also has dim and rainy days with little light; fog that deadens

sounds and ‘merges water and air [over the Lake], while the colours forget to separate

from grey’ (Gini 2000: 6).

The shape of the Lake is said to resemble an inverted ‘Y’, or a man with a foot at Como

and the other at Lecco6. The southeastern, Lecco arm – sometimes called Lecco Lake by

the people from its shores – is edged by sharp and high mountains that outline a ‘severe’

landscape contrasting with the ‘voluptuous Como arm’ (Stendhal 1939: 40). The

northern arm (Alto Lago), closer to the Alps and further from the southern cities, is

wider than the other two, more open and exposed to the winds.

The Lake landscape, at once infused of powerful and mysterious nature by the

proximity with the mountains and the depth of the Lake, and reassuring by the soft

bends in the shores, the villages, cultures and the ability of the eye to grasp both lake

and shore at any given time, has attracted many travellers, scholars and artists for

millennia. This was especially true for the Como arm because a road (Via Regina or Via

Regia) has been running along its western shore since the Roman times. In the Middle

ages (8th century), Paul the Deacon was already praising Lake Como in his poetry.

Many followed through history, and the Lake was particularly renowned as a place of

aesthetic contemplation during the romantic era (Dettamanti 2004). This was, maybe,

because western aesthetic sensibilities tended then to find pleasure in features that at

once evoked powerful nature and human control over it - as put by Tuan, because

‘wilderness elicited delight only when it no longer overwhelmed’ (1995: 60). Stendhal

for instance wrote about the Lake in ‘the charterhouse of Parma’: ‘Everything is noble

and tender, everything speaks of love (…) nothing else as beautiful is to be seen in the

world’ (1839: 24).

6 This is a popular saying (e.g Fieldwork 26 Oct. 2010)


36

Alongside this intellectual and artistic life, the Lake has been a place of arduous

physical work for many local families for whom fishing has been part of the local, rural

livelihood at least since the Roman times7. Other household-scale means of subsistence

have included logging, horticulture and husbandry of few farm animals, such as cows

and goats. Silk production was also an important part of the local economy from the 16th

through to the early 20th century; and so was the smuggling of contraband from

Switzerland, mainly for the villages along the western shore of the Lake, from the early

19th to the mid-20th century (Pensa 1981). The steel industry became prominent around

the Lake in the 20th century, while a more popular form of tourism has become a

primary source of revenue to the area in the recent decades, with a general focus on

holiday houses, campsites and water sports in the north, mountain-related activities in

the east, and culture and aesthetics in the southwestern and central zones of the Lake,

which shelter historical villas and luxury hotels.

Today, the cities and villages by the Lake, built on the shore or the steep mountainsides,

are home to over 180 000 people, about 130 000 of which live in the cities of Como and

Lecco, south of the Lake. In many regards, lakeshore communities are far from

homogeneous. While the Italian language is spoken and understood across generations,

local dialects varying in vocabulary and accent between neighbouring villages dominate

the villages around the Lake, especially among older generations. Beside local

attachment to each village’s uniqueness (e.g. Pensa 1981), there is what seems to be a

mutually acknowledged duality between the residents of the cities (Como/Lecco) and

the villages on the Lake: the ‘people from the Lake’ are referred to as laghee or laghisti,

by their urban neighbours with at times a hint of condescendence (Field notes 30 Aug.

2010), and by themselves with a bit of pride (e.g. Field notes 16 Sept. 2010). The closed

and mountainous landscape is locally thought to have shaped the mentalities and

attitudes of the laghee, described as strong-tempered people (Pensa 1981: 142). For the

people living by its shores, whether from the city of the villages, the Lake is a day-to-

day presence. This emphasis was conveyed to me by a local woman who observed that

Lake Como was like household ’furniture’, suggesting not only an intimacy in the

7 Fishing artefacts were found in a Roman grave in Colonno, including an item that is still used by lake fishers (Pirovano 2003)


37

people/lake relationship, but also a certain comfortableness and necessity of something

so familiar (Field notes 29 Sept. 2010).

2.4.2 Questionnaire, textual analysis (Chapter 4)

The methods used in Chapter 4 aimed to address the socio-cultural dimension of an

engineering intervention on the Como lakeshore. This research took place primarily

from my University in Perth since at that stage (after preliminary fieldwork where the

idea of that paper was born) I was not yet ready to undertake ethnographic research

(although I had commenced supervised study in anthropology).

The development of a web questionnaire for Chapter 4 was a very useful

methodological transition toward social science methods. It was also a useful technique

to acquire, with the help of CWR’s information systems manager at the time. The

treatment of questionnaire data through statistics (using the software PASW Statistics)

allowed a transition from quantitative methods applied to the environmental sciences

(Chapters 3 and 4), to quantitative methods applied to the social sciences, allowing me

to get exposed to new, complex and not totally quantifiable concepts while staying with

the initial comfort of numbers. The limitations of a quantitative method to address such

concepts led me to complement it, already in Chapter 4, with a textual analysis of letters

written by Como’s citizens about the intervention. I thus developed a form of

triangulation to canvass the socio-cultural aspect of the case study related to attachments

to place. This approach also allowed me to become familiar with the environmental

psychology literature on people’s relationships to environmental places (see literature

review in Chapter 4), an interesting complement to the anthropological literature on

these matters.

At a methodological level, Chapter 4 evolved into a substantial bridge as it encouraged

me to become aware of the interest of combining qualitative and quantitative datasets,

and environmental and social science perspectives on a real-world issue. It was a

difficult paper to write, because of the mixed methods used and also because I came to

realise that such a topic would have required being ‘in place’ to address the demands

and complexity of socio-cultural research more thoroughly. While I think the resulting


38

paper is valuable from a methodological perspective, I am also conscious that it

addresses only a narrow aspect of people’s reaction to the structure - that which could

be captured through the questionnaire and in letters. Nonetheless, what I considered to

be a limitation of that paper turned into a strong motivation to carry out ethnographic

research on site as I became increasingly curious about the social side of people’s lives,

everyday practices, cultural life and, in particular, local knowledge about the Lake. The

results of this work emerge in Chapters 5 and 6.

2.4.3 Being there (Chapters 5 and 6): the Lake as a fishing – and ethnographic – taskscape

I conducted ethnographic fieldwork over three months (mid-August to Mid-November

2010), which was concentrated on the Lake’s professional fishers and their

understandings of the Lake’s physical dimensions, in particular some of the processes

described scientifically in Chapter 3. The idea to work with the fishers emerged from

local encounters, in particular that with Massimo Pirovano, a local ethnographer and

historian who had worked with the Lake’s fishers in the 1990s (Pirovano 1996; 2003)

and from discussion about their knowledge of the currents in a limnology study from the

early 20th century (Monti 1924).

Sixty-nine professional fishers were licensed to operate on the Lake in 2010. While the

number of people who actually operated each day varied with the seasons (summer sees

more of them as the conditions are easier), about 30 men consistently fished throughout

the year. They belonged to two main age groups centred on 45 and 65 years old. They

all knew each other, especially the men fishing near each other, whether in the Como

arm, the Centro Lago, the Lecco arm or the Alto Lago. Amongst all the people of the

Lake, these men are probably the most laghisti of all, working long and physically

demanding hours in constant contact with the Lake, and it is their knowledge of the

Lake that helped put my scientific study in perspective.

Time in the field was informed by early discussions with Massimo Pirovano, and with

the councillors for fisheries in the provinces of Lecco and Como, in charge of the

regulation of the activity. These conversations encouraged me to consider how many

fishers were operating on the Lake, where and with which daily rhythm. These matters


39

were particularly useful because of the relatively short period of time I could spend in

the field. To encounter the fishers, I carried out qualitative participant-observation

research which usually involved being in and around the local harbour of lakeside

villages, or at fishing premises when applicable (usually near or within their house, near

the harbour), around 7 or 8 in the morning hoping to meet them as they returned from

retrieving the nets. It was easy to find the men as I asked around the various villages for

the ‘fisher(s)’s place’, known by all. The morning was the best time for interviews as

fishers usually slept during the early afternoon and were busy preparing and setting the

nets in the late afternoon. In the mornings I could arrange time to discuss with them

while they were cleaning, sometimes with their spouses and other family members, the

fish they had just caught. The timing of each interview varied between 30 minutes and 2

hours.

Fishers first considered me sceptically, an attitude that changed progressively as it

became clear I did not represent local governance institutions. They would then

sometimes direct me to other fishers they knew after I explained I was hoping to

interview people operating in various zones of the Lake. This method is usually referred

to as ‘snowballing’ in the literature. It was an effective tool for the circumstances within

which I worked.

The fact that I was a foreign woman helped make my enquiries non-threatening, as did

the topic of my main interest, the fishers’ relationship with the Lake’s physical

dimension. One of the fishermen’s wives confirmed that she felt this was the case,

noting that ‘[the water currents] are not a secret, they are not part of the work of the

fisher’. I found that an understanding of water currents was very much part of the

fishers’ work but, as revealed by this quote (and luckily for me considering my

relatively short time in the field), an understanding of the winds and lake currents was

not considered part of that sensitive body of knowledge, the techniques and tricks that

have to be kept concealed from other fishers (and sometimes administrators). This made

it a non-polemical argument and facilitated discussions that would then open onto other

topics.

I approached the way in which the fishers interacted with Lake Como via two entry

points. I first carried out a spatial survey with 22 fishers around the Lake, conducting


40

ethnographic interviewing and exploring the fishers’ relationship to the Lake by

canvassing details about their fishing practices, the fabric of their small community, the

tacit boundaries and links that exist between them on the Lake. I also undertook

mapping with them (on outlines of the Lake I had pre-drawn) so that we recorded the

winds and currents relevant to their activity. This facilitated the emergence of some

contextual knowledge of their work beliefs and practices, and of these aspects of their

taskscape I was most interested in. These data were emphasised in Chapter 5.

I also elicited and then integrated insights from a period of deeper involvement and

experience, via a deepened, singular participant observation working with of one of the

fishers in a zone where the water currents were particularly strong. I went on the boat

with the fisherman on several occasions to set and retrieve the nets, helped sort and

carry the nets, and helped process the fish. Living just by the small harbour I was able to

watch coloured lights of the nets overnight, and follow their paths. In Paper 4 (Chapter

6), I present narratives, images and sequences of events that illustrate these practices

and engagement with the water currents, collected on and off the fishing boat.

2.5 Reflexivity

2.5.1 Reflexive limnology

Alongside studying as a scientist and engineer via the work carried out throughout 2011

and reported in Chapter 5, the interest in social, cultural and environmental

anthropology I had by then developed assisted a process of reflexivity, and I started to

apply anthropological inquiry to my own scientific practice.8

I had accumulated social and cultural information since the beginning of my

engagement with the data and methods of physical limnology, which in hindsight I

realised constituted a rough basis for the collection of ethnographic material from three

8 An early interest in anthropology had led my supervisor Sandy Toussaint to introduce me to environmental anthropology literature, even as I was only enrolled in environmental engineering in 2008 and 2009. I enrolled in a third-year anthropology unit at Curtin University in 2009 and participated in a postgraduate anthropology-writing group from 2010 – all factors that played a role in the development of my interest for anthropology.


41

years of study as an environmental engineering student conducting research about the

Lake’s physics. Whilst not systematic, the data discerned from an analysis of emails,

and schedules, plans and notes concerning day-to-day actions, computing, programming

and modelling, writing an article for a limnology journal, and of course interacting with

other students and scholars.

As I started working toward Chapter 6, and in order to document and reflect on a

limnologist’s knowledge of water currents in the Lake, I relied on my own research

experience through this information related to my approach to the Lake as a physical

limnology student. It was a form of analytic auto-ethnography as Anderson (2006)

defined it, since I was a member of the research setting and social group I discuss (that

of academic research in physical limnology), I was identified in publications as

belonging to that research field (Chapter 3), and my aim was to reflect on this

experience to examine broader epistemological issues.

2.5.2 Elements of reflexive ethnography

I was also well aware during ethnographic fieldwork and the analysis that followed, that

the fishers’ knowledge I had documented, then called ‘local’ and compared to scientific

knowledge, was largely influenced by my own understanding of the Lake and, in

particular, that which I had acquired through my engagement with physical limnology.

It is this background that made me see some significant and new connections between

fishers’ stories of currents and scientists’ stories of lake stratification and internal waves

– a connection that an anthropologist with no physical limnology knowledge could not

have seen, and one that a physical limnologist with no interest in the fishers’ practical

knowledge could not have seen, either.

Of course this kind of tacit knowledge is always part of the way we do research,

whether it is in the natural sciences or in anthropology, across disciplines or not - a

point that was raised by Polanyi early on (1969). In my case, the approach of mapping

certain currents by drawing them with the fishers during the interview was clearly an

idea that emerged from my background in environmental science and my familiarity

with the outline of the Lake on paper and computer screens.


42

Some of the fishers found the exercise interesting, some were clearly uncomfortable

with it, preferring to show me the usual paths of their nets on the Lake from the boat or

the shore, or to talk about stories involving extraordinary nets paths and the names of

certain lake places. A fisherman from the older generation, for instance, refused to

participate at first in this mapping exercise, insisting for us to get out and have a look at

the Lake from the shore where he could ‘show’ me the pattern of the current he was

talking about – which was obvious for him based on the morphology of the shore.

That day, my socio-cultural sensitivity was not at its sharpest, maybe partly because the

scientist in me had already pictured the possibility of the study reported in Chapter 5

that was based on mapped information from the fishers. He got annoyed, repeating that

he did not understand why I wanted to draw something that I could see so well just from

the shore. In fact he could see what he was describing from the shore, but I could not, or

I could see it but not the information in it: my eye was educated to look at the Lake

vertically, not horizontally and from within the landscape, especially that particular lake

with its convoluted shores that, the first few days, seemed like a maze to me.

Revealingly, a few days after arriving in the field site I felt the need to hike up a

mountain in the north of the Lake. Looking down at the Lake and seeing its outline gave

me the comforting perspective I had been working with, indirectly, for years. This

experience and creation of the map made me reflect on my ethnographic practice. I

realised that I had been, in the words of Bourdieu:

unwittingly impos[ing] the scholastic viewpoint on [my informant], especially by [my] questions which incline[d] and encourage[d] them to adopt a theoretical viewpoint on their own practice (2000: 54).

It is unavoidable for a researcher to understand other people’s knowledge in their own

terms (for, even if these terms evolved, they would remain their own and distinct from

those of the people they work with), but it is possible to be cautiously reflexive about

how these translations are operated through the research and analysis process (West

2005), an issue I continue with below.


43

2.5.3 Translation: several voices in one

I encountered issues related to translation in different forms. First my mother tongue is

French, my PhD was conceptualised and written in English, and the socio-cultural

research was conducted in Italian – translation was thus an omnipresent issue

underlying my research. Just as relevant was the need, familiar to all anthropologists, to

translate day-to-day language and events into theoretical writing, and in my case the

need to translate concepts between fields and to operate shifts between scientific

English (e.g. Chapter 3) and the completely different English language familiar to

anthropologists (e.g. Chapter 6, and to some extent Chapters 1, 2, 7 and 8 that are

reflexive and were written last).

I could barely understand, and not speak, Italian when I started my PhD, and the first

time I went to Como as a scientist to conduct fieldwork in limnology with colleagues

from the research institute IRSA, our exchanges were in English. I tried taking Italian

classes upon my return at UWA, but gave up very quickly as these were designed for

native English speakers and the emphases were not really helpful for my Latin-language

background (I could speak Spanish and had learnt Latin for a few years at school). I

then picked an Italian grammar book at the library and looked at it from time to time, an

approach that seemes natural as the French educational system does (or at least did 10

years ago) strongly emphasise grammar as the entry point to learning languages,

somewhat revealing a view of languages as static, mechanistic systems of words and

rules. Mid-2009 I still had great difficulties having a conversation in Italian.

When I started planning a return to the Lake for ethnographic fieldwork in 2010, I

changed my approach and started listening to podcasts from the Italian National Radio,

every day in public transport on my way to University. While at first I understood

nothing – which was daunting – I persisted for a few weeks, and little by little things

started to make sense as I got used to the patterns and the flow of the language. After

three months, I was able to have long conversations in Italian, and this was also when

the grammatical foundations I had acquired through the book finally took all their sense,

as they became alive in my use of the language. While my Italian was clearly not that of

a native speaker, in the field I was able to conduct interviews and function socially in an

Italian setting – an ease that grew while I was there. Interestingly, for the argument that

follows, since I speak Italian fluently I cannot speak Spanish anymore without great


44

concentration and effort.

The reason why I provided so much detail on the way I let the Italian language become

a daily part of my thinking and acting (and somewhat dislodge another language from it,

at least superficially), is because I found it very similar to the way different academic

fields became part of my thinking. I remember reading an anthropology article at the

very beginning of my engagement with anthropology, and finding it quite unintelligible

despite great focus, highlighting and dictionary assistance (it was a text by Escobar). I

was used to the sort of English written in Chapter 3, but as I persisted and kept reading

texts written by anthropologists, philosophers and social scientists, more and more

things started to make sense and my writing took a turn more characteristic of these

fields. This was in the second half of my candidature, and now as I write the thesis’

introductory and discussion chapters, I find it quite difficult to write for scientists again,

such as I did in Chapter 3.

It will be clear to the reader that there is a tremendous change in the English language

used in Chapter 3 and that in Chapter 6. Each of these styles might flow for some

readers and put others off, seeming overly complicated or too dry. It is proving very

difficult for me to write about concepts of anthropology and limnology in a clear and

simple way that would be intelligible to scholars from both scholastic traditions. As

stated by Turnbull: ‘it is extremely difficult to move outside your own knowledge space

in the same way that it is extremely difficult to become as fluent in another language as

a native speaker’ (2003: 227). There is another great difficulty staying attuned, even in

part, to different knowledge spaces at the same time and to articulate a dialogue

between them because it involves an effort in shifting perspectives and making our way

through ‘epistemological bridges’ (Toussaint 2005) that are required, not just to

convince others in inter-disciplinary teamwork, but to convince ourselves in a personal

inter-disciplinary dialogue as well.


45

2.6 References

Anderson, L. 2006. Analytic autoethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography.

35 (4):373-395

Bourdieu, P. 2000 [1997] Pascalian meditations. Stanford University Press: Stanford

Dettamanti, P. 2004. Viaggiatori stranieri nel territorio lecchese. In Perego, N. and M.

Pirovano (Eds.) – Patrimoni culturali, ricerce storiche, memorie collettive: Brianza e

Lecchese. Ricerche di Etnografia e Storia 11:183-196. Cattaneo: Oggiono (Lc) [Italian]

Fischer, H. B., E. G. List, R. C. Y. Koh, J. Imberger and N. H Brooks. 1979 Mixing in

Inland and coastal waters. Academic Press.

Gini, G. 2000. Centro Lago e altri racconti. Giorgio Fiocchi: Milano [Italian]

Goodwin, C. 1995. Seeing in depth. Social Studies of Science 25:237-274.

Hodges, B. R., J. Imberger, A. Saggio, and K. B. Winters. 2000. Modelling basin-scale

internal waves in a stratified lake. Limnology and Oceanography 45:1603-1620.

Ingold, T. 2008. Anthropology is not ethnography. Proceedings of the British Academy 154:69-92

Ingold, T., and E. Hallam. 2011. Creativity and cultural improvisation: an introduction.

In Hallam, E. and T. Ingold (Eds.) 2007. Creativity and cultural improvisation. Berg:

Oxford

Jolly, L. and L. Kavanagh. 2009. Working out and working in critical interdisciplinarity.

20th Australasian Association for Engineering Education Conference University of

Adelaide, 6-9 December 2009:709-714

Laborde, S., Antenucci, J., Copetti, D. and J. Imberger. 2010. Inflow intrusions at

multiple scales in a large temperate lake. Limnology and Oceanography 55(3):1301–

1312

Latour, B. 1990. Drawing things together. In Lynch, M. and Woolgar, S. (Eds),

Representation in scientific practice, MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass.


46



Lawrence, R. J. and C. Després. 2004. Introduction: Futures of transdisciplinarity

Futures 36:397–405

Monti, R. 1924. La limnologia del Lario in relazione al ripopolamento delle acque ed

alla pesca. Studi fati sotto la direzione della Prof. Rina Monti. Ministero dell’economia

nazionale. tipografia coop. ‘Luigi Luzzatti’: Roma [Italian]

OECD. 1972. Interdisciplinarity: problems of teaching and research in universities,

OECD: Paris

Orlove, B. and S. C. Caton. 2010. Water sustainability: Anthropological approaches and

prospects. Annual Review of Anthropology 39:401–15

Pensa, P. 1981. Noi gente del Lario. Pietro Cairoli Ed.: Como [Italian]

Pirovano, M. 1996. Pescatori di lago. Storia, lavoro, cultura sui laghi della Brianza e sul

Lario. Ricerche di etnografia e storia , Nr. 5: Cattaneo [Italian]

Pirovano, M. 2003. Vita da pescatori sulla costa sud-occidentale del Lario. Tesori di

Lombardia – Bellavite [Italian]

Polanyi, M. 1969. Knowing and being. University of Chicago Press: Chicago

Robinson J. 2008. Being undisciplined: Transgressions and intersections in academia

and beyond. Futures 40:70–86

Strathern, M. 2007. Experiments in interdisciplinarity. Social Anthropology 13(1):75-90

Stendhal. 1839. La Chartreuse de Parme, tome premier. Société belge de librairie -

Hauman et Cie: Bruxelles [French]

Toussaint, S. 2005. Building an epistemological bridge: Coeval integrated practice in

Studies of human/environmental relationships, Sustainable communities, sustainable

environments: potential dialogues between anthropologists, scientists and managers 21:

19-15: Melbourne


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Tuan, Y-F. 1995 [1993]. Passing strange and wonderful: aesthetics, nature, and culture

Kodansha International: New York

Turnbull, D. 2003 [2000]. Masons, tricksters and cartographers: Comparative studies

in the sociology of scientific and indigenous knowledge. Routledge: London

West, P. 2005. Translation, value, and space: Theorising an ethnographic and engaged

environmental anthropology. American Anthropologist 107(4):632–642


48

CHAPTER 3. Basin-scale motions and inflow intrusions in Lake Como

49

Chapter 3 Inflow intrusions at multiple scales in a large

temperate lake

S. Laborde, J. P. Antenucci, D. Copetti, and J. Imberger.

3.1 Abstract

Lake Como receives inflows of vastly varying scales. The majority of the Lake’s water

comes from the alpine inflows to the north, and much smaller inflows supply large

amounts of pollutants in the south. We combined various data sets with a three-

dimensional hydrodynamic model to investigate the processes affecting the fate of these

inflows with potential applications for management responses to both pollution and

climate change effects. During the stratified period inflow waters from the northern

alpine sources intrude in the metalimnion, undergo a deflection due to the Earth’s

rotation, and subsequently affect local flushing in a semi-closed embayment receiving

the shallower intrusions of the small, polluted inflows.

3.2 Introduction

Inflows to lakes and reservoirs have been shown to influence the vertical and horizontal

distribution of salinity (Dallimore et al. 2001), suspended solids (De Cesare et al. 2006),

inorganic pollutants (Morillo et al. 2008), and biochemical material such as nutrients,

dissolved oxygen, and biomass (Fischer and Smith 1983; Brookes et al. 2004; Botelho

and Imberger 2007). Large inflows, relative to the lake volume, may also influence, or

even dominate, the basin scale circulation (Carmack 1978; Killworth and Carmack

1979).

A river flowing into a lake penetrates the Lake basin until the river momentum is

balanced by the buoyancy force, whereupon one of the following regimes forms

(Simpson 1987): 1) if the inflowing water is less dense than the ambient water the river

water forms a surface buoyant plume; 2) if the inflowing river water is denser than the


50

surface ambient lake water, a plunge point forms and the river water underflows along

the river valley bottom, entraining ambient water as it goes, until it reaches a level of

neutral buoyancy; and 3) if the level of neutral buoyancy is deeper than the maximum

depth of the lake, the underflow will fill the Lake from the bottom up. On the other

hand, if the level of neutral buoyancy occurs at depth in the metalimnion or the

hypolimnion, an intrusion forms that propagates horizontally into the Lake (for a review

see Imberger and Patterson 1990). The effects of relative buoyancy, discharge and bed

roughness on these regimes have been documented in both the laboratory (Alavian

1986; Maxworthy et al. 2002; Fernandez and Imberger 2008a) and natural systems

(Hebbert et al. 1979; Ford and Johnson 1983; Alavian et al. 1992). Here we describe the

role of inflows in connecting regional and local flow paths within a large lake (Carmack

1978; Morillo et al. 2008).

To investigate the interflow process and water connectivity, field and numerical

experiments were conducted in Lake Como, which is located in the pre-alpine region of

Italy. Lake Como is large (50 km long), deep (425 m), narrow, and elongated, extending

in the north-south direction (Fig. 8).

Figure 8. Bathymetry of Lake Como

with depth contour lines of 100 m and

20 m for the main map and the zoomed

map around T1, respectively; locations

of measurement stations (Conductivity,

Temperature, Depth (CTD) transects

C1, C2, and F-Probe transects F1, F2).

Ai=Adda inflow, Ao=Adda outflow,

C=Cosia inflow, B=Breggia inflow,

M=Mera inflow


51

A seasonal thermocline develops in the Lake from mid-spring (Fig. 9 A) with the

increasing solar radiation and subsequent aggregation of diurnal thermoclines. The

seasonal thermocline then deepens to reach 40 m in late autumn as the surface cooling

and wind speeds progressively increase. The Adda and Mera Rivers contribute the

majority of water to the Lake (together 70% of the annual total inflow to the Lake

(Copetti and Salerno 2006)), and enter at the northern end (Fig. 8), with the peak flow

rate reaching 300 m3 s-1 during the summer months due to snowmelt (Fig. 9 D). A

number of smaller inflows enter the Lake at its southwestern arm after flowing through

urban areas: the Breggia River that enters the Lake three kilometres north of the city of

Como and the Cosia River that enters at the city of Como. These flows are much

smaller than the Adda (1- 3 m3 s-1), and have higher temperatures (Fig. 9 B), salinity

(Fig. 9 C), and nutrient concentrations (Copetti et al. 2008).

Figure 9. A) Annual stratification in

Lake Como in 2007: depths of 0.25

isotherms were averaged between T2

and T3, over a sliding window of 5

days. B) Temperature and C) salinity of

the Adda (A), Mera (M), Cosia (C),

and Breggia (B) Rivers, for the year

2006. Markers indicate measurements,

dotted lines are linear interpolations.

D) Daily Adda flow rate for the year

2007.

Due to the strong contrast between the large snowmelt supply in the north and the local

point source pollution in the south, Lake Como represents an excellent field site for the

study of the interaction of inflows of different magnitude and their influence on the


52

connectivity of water in different geographical locations in the Lake. The objective of

this study was therefore to describe 1) how inflows of different magnitudes are routed

through Lake Como, 2) how these flow paths interplay with wind driven dynamics, and

3) how these inflows influence local residence time in the southwestern end of the Lake,

which is a polluted area.

This paper is structured as follows: 1) we describe the field data and the process-based

hydrodynamic model used in the study; 2) we apply a scaling analysis to the data,

leading to insights and hypotheses on the circulation of riverine waters through the

Lake; 3) we use modelling to put the data sets in a dynamic context and confirm the

results of the scaling analysis; and 4) we discuss implications of the results for water

quality management in Lake Como and other sub-alpine lakes.

3.3 Methods

3.3.1 Field data

Meteorological data including wind speed and direction, relative humidity, air

temperature, short wave radiation, and net radiation were measured at two in-lake

stations located at the end of the southwestern (SW) and northern (N) arms, T1 and T2

(Fig. 8), respectively deployed since autumn 2004 (T1) and autumn 2006 (T2). Wind

speed and direction were also recorded at T3, located at the end of the southeastern (SE)

arm (Fig. 8). Water column temperature data were recorded, from the water surface to a

depth of 150 m, also from late 2006 until 2009 and at T1, T2, and T3 locations (Fig. 8).

Thermistors were distributed along the three chains with spacing increasing from 0.25

m near the surface to 20 m in the deep hypolimnion, and the sampling interval was 20 s.

This allowed a long term, fine resolution documentation of the Lake’s thermal structure

(e.g., Fig. 9 A). Historical records (older than 2006) for wind speed and direction, air

temperature, rainfall, and solar radiation were obtained through the regional Agency for

Environmental Protection (ARPA Lombardia).

All long-term information about temperature and salinity for the Adda, Mera, Cosia,

and Breggia Rivers consisted of instantaneous ‘spot’ measurements carried out every

month by ARPA in 2005 and 2006 (Fig. 9 B, C). From July 2007 onwards, temperature


53

data for the Cosia and Breggia Rivers were recorded every 10 minutes by gauges

installed by the Water Research Institute of the National Research Council (IRSA -

CNR). The daily flow rate of the Adda (Fig. 9 D) was provided by the Adda River

Consortium (Consorzio dell’Adda), as well as the bi-hourly measurements of stage of

the Adda at Colico.

In-lake salinity profiles were collected in the Como embayment in October 2006 with a

vertical resolution of approximately 1 cm (Morillo et al. 2009) (Fig. 8, transects F1 and

F2). Salinity data over a broader horizontal scale, covering the southwestern arm, were

collected in October 2007 with a vertical resolution of 50 cm (Copetti et al. 2008): (Fig.

8 transects C1 and C2). Finally, satellite images of the northern part of Lake Como

taken during a turbid flood event provided additional information about spatial

heterogeneity in the Lake and the flow path of the northern inflows (TerraMetrics).

3.3.2 Scaling analysis

Inflow behavior was calculated for the Adda, Mera, Breggia, and Cosia Rivers using the

algorithms developed by Dallimore et al. (2001); these allowed determination of the

entrainment in the downflow phase and the insertion depth based on properties of the

inflows, water column, and lake bed. Bottom slope angles were estimated at 1, 1, 7, and

14 degrees from the 5 x 5 m bathymetry of the Lake, respectively for the Adda, Mera,

Cosia, and Breggia thalwegs. The bottom drag coefficient was set to 0.005 based on a

study from Vezzoli and Facchinetti (2006), who found a combination of 80% silt - 10%

clay - 10% sand for Lake Como’s sediment bed.

The effect of the strong northerly winds, causing upwelling and a changing stratification

was parameterised by calculating the Wedderburn number (Thompson and Imberger

1980):


54

W =g'h2

u*2L

Eq. 1

where 'g represents the reduced gravity between the two layers and equals0ρρ∆g , h is

the depth of the interface defined as the depth of maximum buoyancy frequency

obtained after averaging the depth of each 0.1ºC isotherm (from 6 ºC to 30ºC) spatially

over the three thermistor chains and temporally for the period considered, *u is the

surface shear velocity of the water and L is the fetch length. The influence of bottom

slopes on W was negligible because the Lake is very long, deep, and steep sided. This

justified a simple formulation of W with an average h. W may be interpreted as the ratio

of the baroclinic to wind forces; W < 1 indicates that the surface stress force prevails

and therefore upwelling is likely (Stevens and Lawrence 1997).

The river intrusion speed for the Adda plume was calculated by cross-correlating the

stage of the Adda River with the temperature at T2 at the depth of the inflow; this time

lag was then divided into the distance travelled to yield the intrusion speed. We

compared this intrusion velocity scale with analytical values yielded by two different

arguments:

U ~ NH he

Eq. 2

where NH is the buoyancy frequency at the depth of the intrusion and he is the intrusion

thickness;

U ~ Qig'd

1/ 3

Eq. 3

where Qi is the intrusion mass influx, 'g is the relative gravity of the plume with regards

to the ambient water, and d is a width length scale for the basin (Killworth and Carmack

1979).

We estimated the influence of the Earth rotation on the flow path of the northern

intrusion by calculating the Rossby number of the intrusion:


55

R0 = Ufd

Eq. 4

where U is the velocity scale of the flow, f is the Coriolis parameter at 46o N and d is the

typical width of the northern arm of the Lake. R0 < 1 indicates a significant contribution

of the Earth’s rotation to the motion (Gill 1982).

Throughout the study, we refer to the depth of maximum buoyancy frequency (Nmax) as

the thermocline, and to the intermediate layer of large density gradients encompassing

the thermocline as the metalimnion. The upper limit of the metalimnion is the base of

the surface mixed layer, defined here as the depth at which the temperature was 0.2°C

less than the surface temperature, which corresponded for an autumnal stratification in

Lake Como to an approximate buoyancy frequency threshold of 0.01 rad.s-1. We

represent these concepts graphically by plotting the corresponding isotherms.

3.3.3 Numerical model

To complement the scaling analysis, the finite difference Estuary Lake and Coastal

Ocean Model (ELCOM) was applied to Lake Como. ELCOM solves the Reynolds-

averaged Navier-Stokes equations and scalar transport equations with the hydrostatic

and Boussinesq approximations to simulate the velocity, temperature and salinity fields

of the three-dimensional (3D) domain in space and time. Hodges et al. (2000) provide a

detailed description of the model structure and numerical algorithms.

The model was previously used in Lake Como by Morillo et al. (2009). Due to the

different focus of this investigation, the grid was modified to give a horizontal

resolution of 20 x 200 m with the finest resolution in the Cosia embayment, and a

vertical grid ranging from 0.5 to 50 m, with the finest resolution in the surface and

thermocline regions and the coarsest resolution in the deep hypolimnion.

The performance of the model was quantified using the modelling error measures

defined by Rueda and Schladow (2003), I1, I2 norms and root mean square error

(RMSE), as:


56

I1 =Fn − Snn=1

Nmax∑Snn=1

Nmax∑ Eq. 5

I2 =(Fn − Sn )2

n=1

Nmax∑Sn( )2

n=1

Nmax∑ Eq. 6

RMSE =(Fn − Sn )2

n=1

Nmax∑Nmax

Eq. 7

where Fn are temperatures measured in the field, Sn the corresponding simulated

temperatures and Nmax is the number of values compared. These three error measures

allowed a comparison of the model performance with other 3D modelling studies

published in the literature (Rueda and Schladow 2003; Morillo et al. 2009).

3.4 Results

3.4.1 Field data

3.4.1.1 Inflow regimes and fate of small inflows

Salinity data from the two autumn surveys showed distinctive horizontal gradients and

vertical layering both along and across the north-southwest axis of the basin (Fig. 10 F1,

F2, C1, C2). The saline intrusion at the southwestern end was from the Cosia River

(Fig. 10 F1, F2) (Morillo et al. 2009). Copetti et al. (2008) identified the fresh intrusion

at the northern end as originating from the Adda and Mera Rivers (Fig. 10 C1), and the

saline intrusion west of transect C2 as the Breggia River inflow (Fig. 10 C2).

At the beginning of October 2006, the Cosia intruded at a depth of ~10 m (Fig. 10 F1,

F2), this depth corresponding to the base of the surface layer. In October 2007, the

signature of the Breggia was most intense at ~15 m (Fig. 10 C2), which was also the

base of the surface layer at that period. The Adda-Mera plume intruded between 15 and

25 m, just above the depth of the seasonal thermocline (Nmax = 0.034 rad s-1) that was

located at 25 m at the date of the profiles (16 October 2007; Fig. 10 C1, C2).


57

We calculated expected intrusion depths for the Cosia, Breggia, Adda, and Mera at

times corresponding to the two field experiments, based on typical characteristics for

these inflows (Fig. 9 B, C) and accounting for entrainment during the downflow phase

(Dallimore et al. 2001). This yielded 10.1 m, 16.2 m, 26.5 m, and 21.6 m, respectively,

confirming the riverine origin of the saline and fresh intrusions captured by the two data

sets (Fig. 10).

Figure 10: In-lake salinity data corresponding to autumnal transects F1, F2 (October 2006), C1 and C2

(October 2007). Dashed vertical lines indicate the profiles locations; values are linearly interpolated

between profiles.

To understand the seasonal variation of the intrusion dynamics we split the year into

winter (W), early spring (ES), late spring (LS), summer (S), early autumn (EA), and late

autumn (LA) on the basis of previous studies of the dynamics of temperate lakes

(Carmack et al. 1986). The results showed three salient features. First, all four inflows

formed mid-level intrusions during most of the year (Fig. 11). Second, the southern

inflows, on average warmer than the northern alpine inflows (Fig. 9 B), generally

inserted at shallower depths (Fig. 11). Third, there was a strong correlation between the

depth of the thermocline, and the plumes insertion depths (Fig. 11).


58

Figure 11: Average seasonal water column temperature and inflows depths of intrusion. Depths of

isotherms 0.1ºC apart were averaged to obtain seasonal profiles at T1 (black line) and T2 (grey line); W

(winter), ES (early spring), and LS (late spring) are data from 2007 and S (summer), EA (early autumn),

and LA (late autumn) from 2008 because of gaps in data. T2 profiles (N) were used to compute the

regimes of the Adda and Mera Rivers, and T1 profiles (SW) were used for the Cosia and Breggia Rivers.

Dashed lines: Adda (black) and Mera (grey); dotted lines: Cosia (black) and Bregga (grey).

As the Cosia and Breggia Rivers intrude in the surface layer for most of the year, these

inflows are regularly mixed up by wind events. Morillo et al. (2009) document an

episode of mixing and redistribution of the Cosia River waters from a depth of 10 m up

into the surface layer, subsequent to a northerly wind event with speeds of 10 m s-1.

3.4.1.2 Fate of large alpine inflows: interplay with upwelling and unsteadiness

Lake Como is stratified for most of the year (Fig. 9 A), and therefore internal waves

propagate in the metalimnion as a result of wind forcing. The internal wave regime is

relevant to the flow paths of the alpine inflows because we established that they intrude

at or near the thermocline depth. In this long and narrow basin the vertical mode 1

internal seiche appears most prominent in the temperature records, with the southern

branches in phase (Fig. 12 T1, T3), together in antiphase with the northern branch (Fig.

12 T2).


59

Figure 12. Thermal structure of the

water column at stations T2 (N), T1

(SW), and T3 (SE) over the summer

2008. Data points are separated by 4.5

hours. Arrows on top panel indicate

major upwelling events referred to in

the text.

On examining the Adda-Mera intrusions as evidenced in the temperature records

measured at T2, it was noticed that the internal oscillations heaved the inflows up and

down. Therefore, a spectral analysis was used to isolate the dominant period Ti (Table

1) and this was removed by low pass filtering the isotherm depths. The filtered isotherm

displacements at T2 (N, see location in Fig. 8) were then compared to those filtered

records at T1 (SW: Fig. 13 A), and T3 (SE: Fig. 13 B). These north-south gradients of

water column temperature (Fig. 13 A, B) showed a distinct seasonal variability and a

clear correspondence with the depth of the seasonal thermocline (Figs. 9, 11 A, B),

which was also the depth of intrusion of the northern inflows (Fig. 11).


60

Table 1. Fundamental seiche period for each season computed with the two-layer case formula and

evaluated using power spectra of isotherm displacements. Data correspond to 2007 measurements for W,

ES, and LS, and 2008 for S, EA, and LA.

Interface depth (m) and Ti (days) W ES LS S EA LA

Interface depth (m) 44.5 13.25 13.5 10.25 23 34

Ti, two-layer case (days) 9.1 7.9 4.7 4.2 3 2.8

Ti, spectra (days) 8 7.4 4.8 4.7 4.4 4.6

In winter, the riverine layer was not very prominent as this corresponded to the smallest

inflow rates of the Adda and Mera (Fig. 9 D). The intrusion was located at an

approximate depth of 50 m and was about 1 degree colder at the northern thermistor

chain than at each of the southern stations (Fig. 13 A: W). In early spring the rivers

warmed faster than the Lake and a layer of warmer water could be observed in the north

(negative

∆T) from 50 m to the surface as the river water progressively warmed (Fig. 13

A: ES and see point (a) in Fig. 13 B). With the approach of summer the surface waters

of Lake Como rapidly warmed, a seasonal thermocline developed (Fig. 9 A) and the

river inflows intruded at a depth of 10 m in summer (Fig. 13 A: S and see point (b) in

Fig. 13 B) and reaching 30 to 40 m in late autumn (Fig. 13 A: LA and see point (c) in

Fig. 13 B).

Figure 13. Differences between

temperatures (ºC) measured at two T-

chain locations after filtering by the

fundamental seiche period Ti for each

season. A) Differences between

southwestern (T1) and northern (T2)

stations. B) Differences between

southeastern (T3) and northern (T2)

stations. White bands are gaps in data.

Black lines indicate seasonal split: W,

ES, LS 2007 and S, EA, LA 2008. (a),

(b) and (c) are referred to in the text.


61

Fig. 13 shows evidence of pulses of colder water at the northern intrusion depth in

summer (Fig. 13 A: S and see point (b) in Fig. 13 B). They had a periodicity of

approximately 9 days and were preceded by storm events with heavy rainfall and strong

northerly winds. To understand the connection between the storm events and the cold

water pulses, the data from summer 2008 were used to calculate a time series of the

Wedderburn number. Because the basin is narrow and the winds were channelised by

the surrounding hills (Fig. 14), only winds with a northerly component may be expected

to induce large displacements of the interface in the north, and this was particularly true

for the three peaks in the wind speed marked as a, b, c in Fig. 15 A (black line)

corresponding to northeasterly events.

Figure 14. All wind speeds and

directions for the year 2007, at the

three stations. Shading represent

the wind speed in m s-1, and the

length of the 10 degrees bins

represents the probability of

occurrence of the respective

direction.

The major peaks in the temperature anomaly (Fig. 15 B peaks 2, 3, 5) resulted from

strong upwelling, with W<1 and high river flow rate for peaks 2 and 5. The three

upwelling events (marked as 2, 3 and 5 in Fig. 15 B) may also be reflected in the


62

isotherm contours shown in the top panel in Fig. 12 (T2). The downwelling resulting

from these wind events at the southern stations is seen in the middle and bottom panels

of Fig 12 (T1 and T3).

Figure 15. A) Wind speed at T2 (UT2:

black line) filtered over Ti/4 (Stevens and

Lawrence 1997) and stage of the Adda

River near the mouth (H*, detrended: grey

line). B) Log plot of the Wedderburn

number (W: black solid line) computed

with average characteristics of the water

column (g’=0.016 and h=10) and UT2; and

temperature anomaly between T1 and T2

at 10 m after filtering by Ti (ΔT: black

dotted line). Triangles mark events

referred to in the text.

The anomalies, marked by 1, 4, and 6 in Fig. 15 B, occurred during calm conditions and

were thus independent of upwelling events; they had their origin in inflow peaks as

shown in Fig. 15 A (grey line). There was a time lag between the inflow peaks and the

anomalies: a cross-correlation analysis between the stage of the Adda and the

temperature anomaly at the depth of the intrusion (correlation coefficient: 0.85) yielded

a phase lag of 10 hours implying an intrusion speed of 0.11 m s-1, which compares well

to the theoretical scale values computed with average lake and intrusion variables for

summer 2008 (Table 2).


63

Table 2: Velocity scales for the northern plume in summer 2008 as estimated using Eqs. 2, 3 and as

inferred from field data.

3.4.1.3 Effect of the Earth rotation: deflection and instabilities

Using Eq. 4 with the above determined intrusion speed and a typical width of 1700 m

for the northern arm of the basin, we obtained a Rossby number of 0.62 for the

buoyancy-driven flow. R0 < 1 and therefore the Adda-Mera inflow is expected to be

deflected towards the western bank of the Lake. Similar deflections were identified by

Hamblin and Carmack (1978) for the Thompson River inflow in Kamloops Lake and by

Serruya (1974) for the Jordan River in Lake Kinneret.

Satellite imagery documents a turbid flood event that occurred in summer 2001 (Fig. 16

A); it confirms that the waters originating from the Adda and Mera Rivers (high

turbidity waters, appearing clearer on the image) flowed as a boundary current along the

western shore of the Lake. Inflows in a rotating basin were investigated in the

laboratory by Griffiths and Linden (1981) who showed that buoyant overflows or

submerged intrusions are inherently unstable as revealed in this case by the eddy in the

lower left of Fig 16 A. The morphometry of the basin may have acted as a trigger for

this instability, which then developed drawing both on kinetic energy from the

horizontal shear and potential energy from the stratification (Gill 1982). Its diameter

relative to the Lake width scale d should scale with R0 (Griffiths and Linden 1981;

Summer 2008

Variables Velocity scale

Eq. 2 NH = 0.03 rad s-1 he = 5 m 0.15 m s-1

Eq. 3

Qi = 200 m3 s-1 g’= 6.1 x 10-3 m s-2

d = 1700 m 0.09 m s-1

Field estimate T = 36,000 s L = 4000 m 0.11 m s-1


64

Killworth 1980), which is consistent with the size of the vortex on Fig. 16 A. Such

structures are similar to those observed on the continental shelves of oceans after

episodes of differential cooling (Maxworthy 1997). They have been documented in

Lake Superior (Chen et al. 2002) and Lake Biwa (Akimoto et al. 2004), however, in

both cases the buoyancy fluxes inducing the vortices originated from surface exchanges

and, as far as we are aware, their occurrence on the edge of riverine currents in lakes has

not been studied.

Figure 16: A) satellite image of the northern arm of Lake Como; summer 2001 (reproduced with

permission - Copyright 2009 TerraMetrics). B) Model reproduction of the phenomena: velocity vectors at

10 m depth. ‘Ar’ and ’Mr’, respectively indicate the Adda and Mera Rivers.

3.5 Numerical Modelling

3.5.1 Validation

The model was validated for the two field experiments conducted during the following

periods: 24 September 2006 to 06 October 2006 included and 30 September 2007 to 16

October 2007 included. We validated the thermal structure against the temperature

records at the thermistor-chains. Salinity was used as a conservative tracer to further

validate the flow paths of the intrusions; its contribution to density was small compared

to that of temperature. The southern inflows (Cosia and Breggia) were saltier than the

Lake (Fig. 10 F1, F2, C2), and the northern inflows (Adda and Mera) were fresher (Fig.


65

10 C1, C2). For both validation periods, the model was started from rest, with

horizontal free surface and isopycnals, a horizontal temperature structure obtained by

averaging the isotherm depths from the available profiles measured at the thermistor-

chains locations and a uniform salinity of 0.1 g L-1. The inflows salinities were set from

the data reported on Fig. 9 C.

Wind forcing on the Lake’s surface was modelled by spatially variable wind fields

constructed from data at the three stations (T1, T2, T3) and the nautical map of Lake

Como (Istituto geografico de Agostini 1983) that provide a description of the main

winds and show that their directions between the three stations are constrained by the

shape of the basin. Wind speeds in each branch were as recorded at the corresponding

station in the branch (Fig. 14) and wind directions were oriented along the different axes

of the basin.

The period corresponding to the fine scale measurements of the Cosia River intrusion

was previously modeled by Morillo et al. (2009). The model response to the wind stress

was improved by applying a neutral wind drag coefficient of 1.5 x 10-3, which was

corrected at each time step to account for atmospheric stability (Imberger and Patterson

1990).

Fig. 17 shows time series of isotherm displacements as measured (Fig. 17 A) and

simulated (Fig. 17 B) at the station T2 from 30 September to 16 October 2007, the latest

date corresponding to the series of profiles documenting the Adda – Mera intrusion

(Fig. 10 C1, C2).

The difficulties to reproduce the motion in the first week was due to large internal

waves during the two weeks preceding the period simulated; the model, started from

rest, needed a week to adjust to the motion (Fig. 17 C). Later discrepancies in the

amplitude and phase of modelled interfacial displacement (Fig. 17 C) were attributed to

the imperfection of the interpolated wind field. Wind data were available only at the end

of the three arms of the Lake (Fig. 14), some 40 km apart and in different topographic

canyons. Despite the improvement made by aligning the wind directions with the

canyons, wind momentum may not be fully captured when such complex wind fields

are only measured at few discrete locations (Z. Zhang unpubl.).


66

Figure 17. A) water column

temperature as measured by T2 sub

sampled every hour; B) as simulated by

ELCOM, plotted every hour. Isotherm

spacing is 1oC. Black isotherm is 13oC

and represents the thermocline. C)

Time series of 13oC isotherm depth as

measured in the field (black) and

simulated by ELCOM (grey).

The results were good, despite some difficulties related with initial conditions or

complexity of the wind field. The error analysis is given in Table 3. It was conducted

over data points measured and simulated at the thermistors depths, down to 50 m and

distributed every hour through the simulated period. These results are comparable with

other numerical modelling studies (Rueda and Schladow 2003) and with the results

obtained by Morillo et al. (2009) (RMSE = 0.901, I1 = 0.034, I2 = 0.054)


67

Table 3: Root mean square error, I1 and I2 norms of the thermal structure of the water column, as

measured and simulated. The analysis covers the whole simulation period from 30 September to 16

October 2007 included.

T2 T3

Data points 5698 3663

RMSE 0.807 0.702

I1 0.056 0.057

I2 0.064 0.062

The depths of the intrusions were correctly reproduced by the model (Fig. 18 F1, F2,

C1, C2 to compare with the field data in Fig. 10 F1, F2, C1, C2), both for southern and

northern inflows. The model also captured the latitudinal displacement of the Cosia

waters towards the right of the basin (Fig. 18 F1, 12 B, D). Despite an underestimation

of the volume of the intrusions due to the start from rest with uniform salinity, these

results represent a good validation of the flow paths for two distinct periods, local and

regional intrusions scales, both along and across the axis of the basin.

Figure 18: Simulated salinity field corresponding to transects F1, F2, C1, and C2. Dashed lines indicate

the profiles locations; values are linearly interpolated between profiles. Corresponding field profiles are in

Fig. 10.


68

3.5.2 Fate of large inflows- intrusion, deflection, instability

To gain a three dimensional understanding of the flow paths, we plotted the averaged

north-south velocities across two west-east transects (Fig. 19 transects A and B) for the

last four days of the 2007 validation period (12 October 2007 to 16 October 2007). This

long spin-up time was to allow the northern inflows to reach the output points. Results

show a southward current dominating in the upper metalimnion for both transects, with

stronger velocities along the western shore of the Lake (Fig. 19 A, C). Numerical tracers

injected as passive scalars into the Adda and Mera inflows confirmed that this

southward current corresponded to the northern intrusion, confined in the upper

metalimnion by the stratification (Fig. 19 B, D: black contours; the Mera is not shown

here). These results verified the findings from the field observations and the scaling

analysis: northern inflows formed an intruding plume travelling south in the upper

metalimnion, mostly along the western shore of the basin. Numerical experiments

conducted by successively ignoring Coriolis and the wind stress in the computation

showed that this deflection was due to the Earth rotation combined with bathymetric

effects (not shown here).

Figure 19: Left panel: location of transects A and B on the map of Lake Como. (A) north-south

component of the velocity for transect A (positive towards south), base of the surface layer (thin dashed

white line) and thermocline (thick dashed white line). (B) Same as A for transect B. (C) Contours of the

tracer from the Cosia River (grey) and Adda River (black) for transect A. (D) Same as (C) for transect B.


69

Eddies similar to those observed by the satellite (Fig. 16 A) developed along the Adda-

Mera plume for both validation periods, at the depth of the northern intrusions. The

model was set-up in average summer conditions (Fig. 17, profiles ‘S’) ignoring surface

stress and surface heat fluxes in order to isolate the effect of the Earth rotation

combined with the morphometry of the basin. The main instability that appeared in the

satellite image (Fig. 16 A) was reproduced numerically; first the plume was deflected by

the Coriolis force along the western boundary of the Lake and second the horizontal

shear along the edge of the current fed an instability resulting in the vortex structure

(Fig. 16 B).

3.5.3 Fate of small inflows – intrusion, deflection, vertical mixing

Results showed a stronger concentration of the Cosia and Breggia tracers in the surface

layer and along the eastern shore of the arm (Fig. 19 B, D, grey contours; Breggia is not

shown here). This corresponded to a northward current across both transects, travelling

at the base of the surface layer (Fig. 19 A, C). Numerical results showed that the

deflection towards the east was due to the Earth rotation combined with bathymetric

effects (not shown here). As inferred from the field observations and the scaling

analysis, the relative buoyancy of the Breggia and Cosia plumes on the one hand and the

Earth rotation on the other, result in a main flow path that is clearly distinct from that of

the northern inflows, both vertically (shallower) and laterally (towards the east) (Fig. 19

B, D).

Internal wave motions affected these surface layer intrusions. Northerly winds blowing

during 11 October and 12 October 2007 set-up an internal seiche with a period of

approximately 4 days, and an amplitude of 7 m (Fig. 17 A, C). On 13 October 2007, the

interface was tilted up in the north (upwind; Fig. 17 A) and down in the south

(downwind; Fig. 20 A, isotherm 13); and the Cosia and Breggia waters formed an

interflow at a depth of 15 m corresponding to the base of surface layer (Fig. 20 A,

isotherm 15). Two days (~Ti/2) later on 15 October 2007, the interface was tilted up at

the southwestern end and the Cosia and Breggia waters appeared mixed up into the

surface layer and out toward the north (Fig. 20 B). Along the transect shown on Fig. 20,

and within the first 3 km from Como (up to the transect B on Fig. 19), 28% of the total


70

mass of tracer from the Cosia and Breggia Rivers was contained within the first 5 m of

the water column on 13 October (downwelling; Fig. 20 A), against 61% on 15 October

(upwelling; Fig. 20 B). The northern intrusion (Fig. 20 A, B, black contours) was

initially concentrated into the upper metalimnion (Fig. 20 A), and as the isotherms

relaxed upwards it penetrated further into the embayment and mixed up into the surface

layer (Fig. 20 B).

Figure 20. Longitudinal transects along

the Cosia intrusion, from Como up to 6

km into the southwestern arm and as

simulated by the model. Isotherm 15

(dashed white line) represents the base of

surface layer. isotherm 13 (dashed white

line) represents the thermocline.

Shadings are Cosia and Breggia tracer

concentration in log scale (log10 [TR]).

Black contours are Adda tracer

concentrations in log scale.A)

Downwelling and B) upwelling are apart

in time of Ti/2. Tracers were initialised at

1 in both rivers.

3.6 Discussion

3.6.1 Intrusions interactions; effect on local flushing

This study contributes to the understanding of the fate of catchment material of different

origins in Lake Como, with a focus on autumnal conditions. An important question for

management applications is whether the northward epilimnetic current and the regional

southward metalimnetic current identified (Fig. 19) are related, as this would suggest

that any local modification of the flow paths could have regional consequences.

We evaluated the fluxes of numerical tracers through the sections A and B (locations

shown in Fig. 19) under two different scenarios of alpine inflows for the 2007 validation

period. The first scenario used the measured inflow (base case, described previously);

whereas a second scenario assumed no inflows coming from the north. The outflow for


71

the second scenario was adjusted to balance the manipulated inflow. The two

simulations were identical in every regard apart from the presence or not of the northern

inflows, and the magnitude of the corresponding outflow. The conservative tracers were

injected as passive scalars respectively in the Cosia and the Adda Rivers, starting on 04

October 2007 and with a concentration of 1 kg m-3 for the two scenarios.

For each transect (A, B), we evaluated the fluxes of tracers through each cell at each

time step (tracer concentration in cell (kg m-3) x N-S component of the velocity in cell

(both transects are oriented E-W) (m s-1) x vertical section of cell (m2)); then aggregated

all transect cells and accumulated with time to obtain the total mass of tracer advected

through each transect, at each time step. These are compared in Fig. 21 B, C. The results

showed that, for the period simulated, the presence of the northern intrusions promoted

the flushing of the Cosia River waters out of the southwestern arm (Fig. 21 C) and to a

lesser extent out of the Como embayment (Fig. 21 B). At the end of the simulation (end

of 16 October 2007), the total mass of Cosia tracer flushed out of the southwestern arm

was 74% smaller in the ‘no northern inflows’ scenario than in the base case. This was 7

days after the northern intrusion had significantly penetrated into the southwestern arm

in the base case (Fig. 21 C, grey line). It was 19% smaller at the local scale of the Como

embayment, 3 days after a significant penetration of the northern intrusion into the

domain in the base case (Fig. 21 B). The divergence between the results of the two

scenarios was more and more marked as the northern intrusion penetrated into the

embayment (Fig. 21 C, grey line).


72

Figure 21. A) Wind speed (grey line)

and direction (black dots) at T1. B)

Cumulative mass of Adda tracer (TRA,

grey) and Cosia tracer (TRC, black)

across the transect B (see location on

map Fig. 19). C) Same as B) across

transect A (see location on map Fig.

19). B) and C) are numerical results.

Tracers were initialised at 1 in both

rivers. Plain lines represent the base

case; dotted lines represent the

numerical scenario (no northern

inflows).

Another salient feature was the influence of internal seiching on the exchange fluxes.

On 13 October 2007 the flushing of the Cosia out of the Como embayment was slowed

down and reached a minimum as the winds pushed the surface layer back towards the

southwest (Fig. 21 B, grey arrow; see also Fig. 20 A). This minimum affected first the

shallow southern intrusion (Fig. 21 B, grey arrow) and subsequently the deeper northern

intrusion as the pressure gradient built up at the southwestern end of the Lake (Fig. 21

C, grey arrow). As the isotherms relaxed, the exchange started again to reach a local

maximum on 15 October 2007 (Fig. 21 B, C; see also Fig. 20 B).

3.6.2 Applications

This numerical experiment showed that, for the period studied in autumn 2007, the

alpine intrusions to Lake Como promoted flushing of the southwestern arm and of the

semi-enclosed Como embayment. This result is important for water quality management

because it indicates that fluxes of polluted material out of the Como embayment and

arm will fluctuate with the properties of the northern inflows. These were shown to vary


73

seasonally (Fig. 17) and synoptically (Fig. 19). We also established the effect of wind-

driven internal motions on the flushing of the Como embayment, with periods ranging

from 2 to 4 days in stratified conditions.

The understanding of these time scales dependencies may allow a more effective

operation of an in-lake remediation technology such as that proposed by Morillo et al.

(2009), designed to alter the flow path of the Cosia River intrusion. Some relevant

processes remain to be studied, including for instance, the influence of the unsteady

flow rate and density of inflows on the dynamics described in this paper. This question

is potentially important in systems like Lake Como where inflows are very responsive

to rainfall and undergo sudden changes in flow rate on the one hand, and can vary in

density due to industrial discharges on the other (for the southern inflows). Future

research on this topic could build on the laboratory work carried out by Fernandez and

Imberger (2008b). Likewise, the seasonal variability of this process, including its

ecological consequences, deserves further study. Finally, the effects of baroclinic

instabilities on horizontal mixing in lakes also provide an opportunity for more research.

This process would be of major importance for the distribution of catchment material

across the axis of narrow basins like Lake Como, where the wind is channelised by the

surrounding topography (Fig. 20), the internal response to the surface stress is mostly

longitudinal (Fig. 18), and the northern plumes intrude in the metalimnion for most of

the year (Fig. 17).

3.6.3 Regional context

In the current context of climatic change, inflows of the southern Alps are

expected to undergo a significant decrease of mean annual discharge, particularly

an important decrease in summer and autumn flow rates (Horton et al. 2006). This

will affect the internal dynamics of Lake Como, and particularly the flushing of

the western arm during the stratified period. This may result in a longer residence

time in this arm for the polluted waters of the southern inflows, with potentially

consequences like algae blooms.


74

Finally, the findings of this study are relevant for other lakes. In the subalpine region

alone, all major lakes are supplied by alpine inflows and the dynamics described in this

paper may also apply to these systems (Lake Maggiore and the Ticino and Maggia

Rivers; Lake Lugano and the Cassarate River; Lake Iseo and the Oglio River; Lake

Garda and the Sarca River).

3.7 Acknowledgements

We thank Ryan Alexander, Sebastian Morillo, and Patricia Okely for constructive

discussions and comments during the study; and Alberto de la Fuente and Arnoldo

Valle-Levinson for critically reviewing the manuscript. The first author acknowledges

the financial support from the International Postgraduate Research Scholarship funded

by the Australian Government through the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science,

and Research, as well as the support of the Water Corporation of Western Australia and

CWR that provided a living allowance scholarship. This work was conducted in

conjunction with Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Istituto di Ricerca Sulle Acque

(CNR - IRSA) in Brugherio and we thank G. Tartari, N. Guyennon, and L. Valsecchi

for data collection. Data have been provided with the support of the West Arm

Exchange Enhancement System Project Stage 1 funded by Como Province, Como Town

Council, Como Chamber of Commerce, Cariplo Foundation, Banca Intesa - San Paolo

and Pliniana (Gruppo Petrolifera Italo Rumena), and coordinated by Centro di Cultura

Scientifica ‘A. Volta’. We also thank two anonymous reviewers whose comments

significantly improved the manuscript. This article forms Centre for Water Research

reference 2274 SL.

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Chapter 4. Technical and socio-cultural perspectives on a failed flood prevention intervention

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Chapter 4 A wall out of place: a hydrological and socio-

cultural analysis of physical changes to the lakeshore of

Como, Italy

Laborde, S., Imberger, J. and S. Toussaint.

4.1 Abstract

The construction of a flood protection structure that obscured views of the Lake in

Como, northern Italy, led to unprecedented public protest in 2009-2010 and to the

eventual dismantlement of the structure. This provided a focus to investigate the

delicate interplay of technical and cultural matters in environmental policy - in this case

catchment management and flood prevention. This article shows how a focus on

hydrological control in isolation from the rest of the catchment and from the socio-

cultural context greatly contributed to the project’s failure. A key message of the article

is that data and analyses from the environmental and social sciences are both pivotal to

environmental planning, as they inform different yet interdependent components of a

single project. There is value in integrating technical and socio-cultural knowledge, both

at the academic level, as illustrated by the mixed-methods used in this article, and at the

policy level through management frameworks that emphasise cross-sectoral learning

and public participation. The analysis also reveals that the notion of ‘place’ has a central

role to play in this process of integration, both as a conceptual bridge between technical

and socio-cultural components of environmental studies, and as an emphasis in

environmental planning activities to foster the interest and engagement of communities.

4.2 Introduction

This paper is a reflection on the integration of technical and cultural components of

environmental management. It is based on an empirical analysis of a failed flood-

defence project – a structural intervention on the lakeshore of the Italian city of Como


80

(84,085 inhabitants: istat 2009) that was opposed by the local population during its

construction. It was subsequently dismantled.

The lakeshore of Como is a line of encounter between the city and Lake Como, a large

subalpine lake (Fig. 22). As such, it is physically shaped by the hydrology of the Lake

catchment, and it also constitutes an anthropological place in the sense defined by Augé

(2000 p. 100), because it is relevant to the contemporary lives and identities of the

citizens of Como, and it is charged with historical and social meanings (e.g. Turati and

Gentile 1858). The transformation of the lakeshore of Como via the construction of a

flood-defence structure therefore combined hydrological issues related to the dynamics

of the lake and its impacts on the city through the occurrence of floods; and socio-

cultural issues related to the relevance of the lakeshore as a meaningful place.

Figure 22: Right: map of Lake Como and its catchment, and bottom: schematic drawing of the catchment

system. Left: zoom - the city of Como, and top frame: photographs representing the ‘wall’ as seen from

the footpath through a window in a wooden fence (taken by first author in Oct 2009)


81

4.2.1 Definitions and theoretical framework

At the societal level, water systems such as lake catchments are broadly conceptualised

as a natural resource to be studied, modeled and controlled by experts in order to

support societal uses, including water supply, navigation and flood mitigation (for

example Lynch 2010: preface). This approach is grounded in the fields of economics

and engineering, and it has been labeled as ‘technocratic’ because of its historical

reliance on expert judgments and top-down procedures (Fischer 2000).

Meanwhile, at the individual and community levels, people have developed knowledge,

practices and values pertaining to their local environments by living and dwelling in

them (Ingold 2000). Meanings related to particular locations emerge from this process,

particularly in relation to water places (Strang 2004; Toussaint 2008). Place-based

meanings may evolve into attachment (Altman et al. 1992) and play a significant role in

one’s sense of self and sense of community (Milton 2005; Twigger-Ross and Uzzell

1996). In this paper, we use the concept of ‘place’ to embody the range of meanings and

emotions held by individuals or communities for a particular location: it is an explicitly

cultural concept, grounded in local human experience (Tuan 1977; Gieryn 2000;

Stedman 2002).

Environmental planning outcomes should meet acceptable balances between these

interrelated ways of conceptualising and relating to water bodies, which have been

associated with the notions of ‘technical’ and ‘cultural’ rationalities (Fischer 2000: 87).

Decisions that fail to do so, for instance by underrating the socio-cultural relevance of

environmental places, can lead to conflicts and project failures (Devine-Wright 2009;

Devine-Wright and Howes 2010).

Assessing and considering the perspectives of all groups affected by a management

decision, including citizens who hold meanings for a particular place (thereby

‘stakeholders’ of any decision affecting that place), has been encouraged by water

management frameworks in the last two to three decades through the implementation of

participatory processes under the general framework of integrated management (United

Nations 1992, Principle 10; EU 2000, Article 14; Creighton 2005). Integrated

management is based on the consideration of a water catchment in its hydrological and

social complexity, in contrast with traditional technocratic approaches that are often


82

based on static designs relying on historical analyses of isolated processes (Pahl-Wostl

2007).

The engagement of local communities has also been identified as a key component of

adaptive management for water resources and beyond (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2007; Huitema

et al. 2009), a complementary approach to integrated management that emphasises

continuous learning and experimentation between and amongst scientists, managers and

communities, in order to better handle the complexity and uncertainty inherent in social-

ecological systems (Tompkins and Adger 2004). Within these management frameworks,

public participation has been shown to improve relationships among stakeholders,

builds trust in institutions and fosters the development of environmental knowledge and

awareness (Beierle and Konisky 2001; Bijlsma et al. 2011).

The flood management literature echoes the developments in water management

outlined above. Scholars and institutions have stressed the value of catchment-

integrated approaches (Nunes Correia et al. 1998; EU 2007); adaptive non-structural

solutions have been seen as more fair and strategic than major engineering works (Vis et

al. 2003; Johnson et al. 2007); and public participation has been associated with better

decisions and greater chances of policy success (McDaniels et al. 1999).

However, while participatory processes are central to the transition in resources

management that is advocated in the academic literature (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2009 for a

summary), their practical implementation in the context of environmental planning has

proven difficult (Rydin and Pennington 2000). They may be judged as time-consuming

and costly by decision-makers (Irvin and Stansbury 2004), and the public may not trust

or be willing to engage in such processes (Barbier 2005). This is especially likely for

questions of flood mitigation that are associated with substantial uncertainty, and which

may be addressed a long time after the last flood hazard has passed (Godschalk et al.

2003). In Italy, it has been argued that the legacy of a technical, top-down management

structure is supported at the individual level by a general lack of interest in engaging

with traditional policy, a combination that tends to particularly hinder formal public

participation in environmental management (Massarutto et al. 2003).


83

4.2.2 Aim and overview of the article

Medema and colleagues (2008) expressed the need for more case studies documenting

the failures of traditional management practices in the water sector, in order to set a

stronger case for reforms toward integrated and adaptive management approaches. This

article proposes such a case study, as it emphasises aspects of a technocratic approach to

flood prevention that have led to policy failure, in particular a focus on hydrological

control in isolation from the rest of the catchment and the socio-cultural context. Our

objective was also to illustrate the methodological value of integrating insights from

technical and social analyses in environmental studies, and to show how a focus on the

notion of ‘place’ can facilitate such integration.

We use mixed methods across the environmental and social sciences to encompass

multiple components of the case study. We start here by presenting hydrological data

and analyses to assess the causes and risk of floods in Como, and to discuss the

engineering rationale behind the project. By way of environmental psychology and

anthropology we then turn to the socio-cultural evidence to examine reactions triggered

by the structure that became known in Como simply as ‘the wall’ (il muro). This

analysis was conducted by triangulating data from quantitative and qualitative sources

(Moran-Ellis et al. 2006). Finally, we discuss the relevance of our findings from the

practical perspective of environmental planning and management, and from a more

theoretical standpoint regarding the integration of insights from environmental and

social sciences.

4.3 Floods in Como: hydrological considerations

4.3.1 Background

Lake flooding has always been part of the history of Como, as reported in the city

archives (Monti 1900), historical prints and engravings (Poggi and Cantù 2000), and

depicted physically on the city’s facades (Via Volta 54; personal observation, 22 Oct

2009). The Lake catchment extends north into the Alps, where snow serves as a natural

reservoir distributing some of the winter precipitation through spring and summer in the

form of snowmelt runoff. The main inflows to Lake Como are partly controlled by a


84

series of 20 upstream alpine reservoirs that were constructed throughout the 20th century

and are currently managed by private hydropower companies (Moisello and Vullo

2011); water is retained in spring and summer to be released in autumn and winter when

electricity demand is high. The outflow from Lake Como, and hence the lake levels,

have been managed since the construction of a dam near Lecco in 1946 for a consortium

of downstream water users (Consorzio dell’Adda 2010), with an aim to provide

hydropower in winter and irrigation water in summer; while moderating lake levels to

prevent flooding in Como at one extreme and very low lake levels at the other9.

Since 1975, the elevation of the city’s lowest point (198.51 m ASL – measured on the

lakeshore by Piazza Cavour in 1997: Comerci et al. 2007) was practically reached every

year by the lake, although the peak levels were contained in most years to that limit.

However, on 10 occasions the Lake caused significant flooding in the city despite the

regulation, flooding an area of more than 1.5 hectares. The area susceptible to flooding

is composed mainly of parks and commercial activities, and the consequences impact

mainly on structural integrity (of historical buildings in some cases) and economic

losses due to the suspension of activity (M. Gastine, unpublished thesis).

4.3.2 Methods

In this first section we aim to provide the hydrological background to the construction

of the anti-flood structure on the lakeshore. We provide an overview of the water level

changes in Lake Como, in response to both long term and seasonal weather patterns and

catchment management. The data used were provided by the Consorzio dell ‘Adda. It

included daily precipitation at two stations within the catchment (Bormio, north of the

catchment [1951-2005], and Olginate, southeast of the Lake [1961-2007]), as well as (1)

integrated volumes of weekly storage in the alpine reservoirs upstream of Lake Como

[1965-2007]; (2) daily lake outflow since 1946; (3) daily lake surface elevation since

1845; and (4) integrated total daily inflows and atmospheric fluxes (direct rainfall and

9 The Lake’s active storage volume of 254.3 x 106 m3 (Consorzio dell’Adda 2010)


85

evaporation) since 1946, calculated and used daily by the manager from a simple mass

balance equation (inflow and atmospheric fluxes = outflow + lake level variation).

We analyzed annual and seasonal trends of water balance in the catchment based on

these data. We also modeled the catchment’s water balance using MATLAB ®, which

allowed comparing management scenarios. The model was a simple water budget

relating the Lake levels to its total inflows - including atmospheric exchanges upstream

reservoirs storage - and outflow. Rating curves (Moisello and Vullo 2011) providing the

stage discharge relationships at the dam in ‘regulated open’ (all dam gates open) and

‘natural’ conditions (no upstream or downstream dams) allowed modifying the outflow

and lake levels in the scenario analysis, while the inflows were modified by changing

the volumes held in upstream reservoirs10.

4.3.3 Results

4.3.3.1 Long-term trends

Maximum lake levels have been generally decreasing and visibly bounded by the

regulation since the mid-1980s at an elevation corresponding to that of Piazza Cavour

(Fig. 23), with the exception of peak floods (e.g. in 1987, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2002).

Minimum lake levels also appear bounded, particularly since the mid-1990s, at a level

of ~197 m ASL. Mean annual lake levels have been decreasing since the mid-20th

century at a rate of ~1 cm y-1 (Fig. 23). The elevation of the city, and particularly that

of Piazza Cavour, has been decreasing through time due to geological subsidence

resulting from a combination of natural compaction of the unconsolidated glacial

sediments on which the town was built11, and human-induced subsidence12 following

the exploitation of the deep aquifer between 1950 and 1975. The current sinking rate,

10 The reservoirs’ total active volume is 514.9 x 106 m3 (Croce et al. 1987)

11 Sinking velocities ranging from 1 to 2.5 mm y-1 (Comerci et al. 2007)

12 Sinking velocities up to over 20 mm y-1 (Comerci et al. 2007)


86

which is expected to continue in the near future, is approximately 2.5 mm y-1 (Comerci

et al. 2007).

The long-term trends affecting flood mitigation in Como can be summarised as follows:

• The subsidence of the city has increased the need for flood mitigation;

• The dam control of lake levels has improved through time, increasingly supporting

flood mitigation.

Figure 23: Maximum (red dots), mean (black dots) and minimum (blue dots) annual lake levels since

1845 (original data: Consorzio dell’Adda); and elevation of Piazza Cavour (grey dots, Comerci et al.

2007). Vertical red lines indicate the positive difference between maximum lake level and elevation of

Piazza Cavour (e.g. flooding). The black line on the right represents the regulation range.

4.3.3.2 Seasonal trends and water uses

Flooding is most frequent in late spring and early summer (June, July) when snowmelt

coincides with high rainfall, and in autumn (October) when rainfall events cause the

most damaging episodes (Fig. 24). Part of the summer snowmelt runoff is stored

upstream in the hydropower reservoirs, which buffer potential runoff peaks by reducing

the total discharge to the Lake by an average of 29 m3s-1 between May and September.

During the same period, the Lake dam is used to store water, and therefore maintain

high lake levels (Fig. 24), in preparation for the high summer irrigation demand. From

late autumn to early spring (October to April), the electricity production peaks and the

upstream reservoir releases contribute positively to the discharge into Lake Como, by an


87

average of 21 m3s-1 (see also Consorzio dell’Adda 1990). In October and November,

when there is significant risk of flooding due heavy rains, the contribution of upstream

reservoir releases on the Lake level averages 0.7 cm day -1.

The seasonal trends affecting flood mitigation in Como can be summarised as follows:

• In late spring, lake storage objectives compete with flood mitigation while

upstream reservoir storage acts as an inflow buffer and thus supports it;

• In autumn, upstream power production objectives compete with flood

mitigation.

Figure 24: Average number of days per month when lake levels were higher than 198.51 m ASL

(corresponding to the lowest point of Piazza Cavour: Comerci et al. 2007) and 199.22 m ASL

(corresponding to significant floods with more than 1.5 hectares of the city flooded: Gastine 2006,

unpublished thesis). Data are averaged over the period [1965 – 2007].

4.3.3.3 Extreme events

Beside the impact of lakeshore subsidence, the high frequency of floods in the late 20th

century in Como was associated with heavy rainfall-runoff events that have become

increasingly frequent since the 1970s (Fig. 25; see also Brunetti et al. 2001). These

episodes are balanced by dry periods causing inflow minima to decrease (Fig. 25B,

black line): the runoff to the Lake has therefore been evolving in the last four decades

towards an increased variability (Fig. 25B). Beside the changing rainfall patterns, a

review of recent studies suggests that other important hydrological variables in the


88

region like the snow/rain ratio and glacier mass balance are showing nonlinear trends

(Horton et al. 2006; Huss et al. 2009; Grothmann et al. 2009).

The following two points can be made about the stochastic component of flood

mitigation in Como:

• Heavy rainfall events have become more frequent over the last 30 to 40 years,

increasing the need for flood prevention;

• Runoff patterns, and the catchment hydrology in general, have become less

predictable.

Figure 25: A - Maximum daily rainfall observed in Bormio [1951-2005] (upper Adda catchment, blue

line) and Olginate [1961-2007] (Southeast of the lake, cyan line) and fitted linear trends (data: Consorzio

dell’ Adda). B – Highest and lowest total lake inflow calculated for the years 1946 to 2007 and fitted

linear trends (data: Consorzio dell ‘Adda; atmospheric fluxes are included).

4.3.3.4 Flood mitigation

The upstream reservoirs are managed solely to meet hydropower demand variations,

while downstream dam management takes flood prevention into account: when the

Lake level approaches the lowest elevation on the lakeshore, the Lake manager opens

the dam gates (Fig. 26). The dam management has contributed to the decreasing

intensity and duration of floods in Como. However, in the case of heavy rainfall,

complete opening of the dam gates once the rain starts may not be sufficient to prevent

Como flooding since the maximum outflow is limited (about 900 m3 s-1: Fig. 26) and


89

downstream flooding risks must also be considered. The isolated management of the

downstream dam is thus not sufficient to prevent all floods and their material impact on

the city of Como; especially as extreme rainfall events are becoming more frequent.

Figure 26: Daily data of outflow discharge (m3s-1) plotted against lake level (m ASL) from 1946 to 1990

(light gray) and from 1991 to 2007 (dark gray, covers some light gray data points); dashed black line:

rating curve for Lake Como in natural conditions (before construction of the dam in 1946); plain black

line: rating curve for Lake Como in regulated conditions, all dam gates open (free regime); dotted red

lines: regulation range; plain red line: lowest elevation of Piazza Cavour measured in 1997 (Comerci et al.

2007). Rating curves were elaborated by the Hydrographic Office of the Po River and reported by

Moisello and Vullo (2011).

Results from a simple model of the catchment water budget illustrate the potential

benefits of an integrated upstream-downstream management for flood mitigation. For

the modelling exercise, we considered the flood of November 2002 as an example that

was caused by an extreme rainfall event. Starting on January 1, 2002, we compared the

measured lake levels with calculated values based on the rating curves in Fig. 26,


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characterising ‘natural’ and ‘open’ regimes. Results in Fig. 27 show that the actual lake

levels reached during the flood peak in late November 2002 are equivalent to those that

would have been reached with all dam gates open from the beginning of the year, and

nearly 80 cm below those that would have been reached in a ‘natural’ catchment (no

upstream or downstream dams).

The blue line represents a scenario where the upstream reservoirs act to buffer the flood.

We assumed that (1) rainfall over the catchment was homogeneous and the reservoirs

could intercept 10% of the total runoff (Croce et al. 1987: 106); (2) the reservoirs

operated as usual unless the water level in Lake Como reached 10 cm under the lowest

level of Piazza Cavour: in that case, they started storing inflow water (calculated as

10%, then 5% of the total inflow to the lake) until the level was back under the

threshold; and (3) when the Lake level dropped below 50 cm under the Piazza,

accumulated water was released at a rate corresponding to 20% of the total daily inflow

to the lake. Under this scenario, the peak level in 2002 would have been reduced by

about half a meter. Should the reservoirs only intercept 5% of the runoff to limit their

loss in power production, the peak would still have been reduced by about 30 cm. This

scenario was oversimplified and its results are to be taken with caution, since individual

data on the runoff and reserved volumes stored within the reservoirs were not available.

However, it clearly demonstrates some potential and unexplored benefit in coordinating

catchment objectives between upstream, downstream and the lakeshores. Considering

that a flood-defence structure was to be built on the lakeshore, its height could have

been reduced for the same degree of flood protection if the flood buffering capacity of

the upstream reservoirs had been considered.


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Figure 27: A – Lake levels corresponding to different catchment management scenarios for the flood of

November 2002. B – Water volume reserved in the upstream reservoirs in the base case and the

management scenario.

4.3.4 The flood defence project

The idea behind the project was based on a general recommendation to re-elevate the

subsided city shore as part of a series of combined measures proposed by scholars in the

late 1980s to manage flooding in Como (Guariso et al. 1986, Croce et al. 1987). The

project plans proposed the construction of an anti-flood structure on the lakeshore

composed of both permanent and mobile barriers, at an elevation of 200.3 m above sea

level (ASL thereafter) corresponding to approximately 1.8 m above the lowest point on

Como’s lakeshore square (Piazza Cavour). This elevation, which had never been

reached by the Lake since its regulation, was based upon an historical analysis of lake

levels (time series from 1946 to 1990) and the objective to protect the city from 50-year

peak floods.

The decision-makers chose a single structure over a combination of ‘softer’


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interventions, such as improving the network of gauges on the Lake inflows, because of

the only partial effect of the latter on the reduction of maximum flood levels

(Amministrazione comunale di Como 2004, based on Croce et al. in 1987). They did

not account either for the possibility to integrate upstream and downstream catchment

management, possibly because of the costs and difficulties of negotiating priorities

between public and private institutions at different scales (including transboundary,

since two of the upstream hydropower reservoirs are located in Switzerland).

Additionally, a structural intervention benefitted from the availability of national and

regional funds, which were allocated after flooding in the Valtellina valley north of the

Lake in July 1987 (law n.102/90), and it offered the opportunity to revamp the city’s

lakeshore at the same time. These political and financial factors seem to have led to a

preference for a single major technical answer to the complex issue of floods in Como,

rather than a combination of structural and non-structural approaches at the scale of the

catchment.

The project was presented to the public in March 2003 with an emphasis on the

technology of the mobile barriers, and computer renderings of the revamped lakeshore

that did not indicate any obstruction to lake views. The project was received with some

skepticism regarding its legitimacy and engineering feasibility, but there was little

concern regarding its possible visual impact (La Provincia di Como – thereafter LPDC -

21 Oct. 2003). The original project plans were accessible to the public upon demand,

although the project underwent some changes during the implementation stage, which

were not publicly communicated.

The construction commenced in January 2008 and proceeded with no major public

reaction until mid-September 2009, when a citizen denounced a ‘wall’ (‘muro’)

standing on the construction site (Fig. 22, top left) in place of the familiar landscape of

the Lake (LPDC 23 Sept. 2009). A strong community movement ensued in Como to

oppose the structure in construction, fuelled by conversations, Internet exchanges,

media reports and activities that were underpinned by the expression of place-related

feelings of loss, frustration and outrage, as well as doubts related to the legitimacy and

transparency of the political and technical authority that had allowed the ‘wall’ to be


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built. The movement gained momentum in the media, the community and the political

spheres, and it was finally dismantled in February 2010.

4.4 Social movement against the ‘wall’: a socio-cultural analysis

4.4.1 Methods

In this section we present data concerning people’s reactions to the structure in

construction. Principles of environmental psychology and anthropology are used to

contextualise and analyze the data that were composed of (1) public data: letters from

local citizens published in the local newspapers, and a record of the public discussion

conducted through a web-based social network between Sept. 23 and Oct. 7, 2009; and

(2) responses to an online questionnaire distributed between May 4 and May 18, 2010.

The design of the questionnaire and the choice of the coding frame for the analysis of

the public data were supplemented by field notes from informal interviews and

observations conducted on site between Oct. 1 and Oct. 23, 2009. This type of multi-

method approach is useful to encompass community responses both in depth and time

(Deacon et al. 1999; Moran-Ellis et al. 2006). We start by describing the methods used

to collect and analyze the data, then turn to the results. Since they complemented each

other, qualitative and quantitative results are combined in a single section.

4.4.1.1 Questionnaire

The aim of the questionnaire was to collect quantitative data related to the respondents’

reactions to the wall. We designed a computerised web-based survey, which was

selected for flexibility, time-efficiency (de Leeuw et al. 2008) and the general

consistency of its results with other survey distribution methods (Gosling et al. 2004). A

short article explaining the research objectives and a link to the questionnaire were

included in Como’s local newspaper La Provincia di Como (the paper version that is

sold through the Como province, and the web version that is freely accessible) on May

4, 2010, and the data collection was closed on May 18, 2010. The mode of distribution

made the sample a non-random, convenience sample, allowing an examination of


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internal relationships between variables that made a cultural analysis possible but was

not produced for statistical generalization (Bernard 2006).

Questions relating to political and social themes were based on previous studies that

identified a sense of injustice and efficacy as cornerstones of collective action

(Mannarini 2009). Place-related questions were based on the framework developed by

Scannel and Gifford (2010) from which we selected the items that were most salient in

the informal interviews conducted in the field (Field notes 1 to 23 Oct 2009), for

instance the themes of pride and personal history - also reported elsewhere as major

components of place attachment in Italy (Carrus et al. 2005). We assessed the reaction

to the wall using a set of polar (yes-no) questions regarding a respondent’s participation

in different protest actions. The other statements were measured by Likert scale-type

responses.

A total of 471 entries were analyzed; 57.7% of respondents were male, 32.1% female13;

the age distribution differed from that of the citizens of Como and its province mainly

by an under representation of 17- and 55+ years old (demographic data: istat 2009),

which may be explained by the lower interest of the former in daily newspapers, and of

the latter in the Internet. 51% of respondents were current Como residents when they

responded to the questionnaire, of which the great majority (91.4%) had been living

there for more than 10 years. Non-resident respondents were connected to the city and

the Lake because they had once lived in Como (29.9%); they worked in the city (30.3%)

or in the Province (31.5%). 41.2% of respondents (reported seeing the Lake every day,

28.9% several times a week, 21.2% saw the Lake between once a month and once a

week and 8.7% once a month or less. A total of 208 respondents, 44.2% of the total,

engaged in at least one mode of protest against the wall.

We first undertook a principal component analysis (PCA) with orthogonal rotation to

reduce responses to survey questions into a smaller number of variables (de Vaus 2002;

Bernard 2006). We then used t-tests to assess whether the scores of these composite

variables differed significantly between groups of individuals who engaged in different

protest activities; and we conducted analyses of variance to explore the significance for

13 11% did not answer the question about gender.


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these composite variables of other variables such as age, education, and frequency of

contact with the lake.

4.4.1.2 Public data

In order to compare with the PCA results and to identify patterns in time, especially

since the questionnaire data were gathered several months after the dismantlement of

the wall, we conducted a thematic content analysis on two written data streams of

residents’ reactions to the wall (Bernard 2006). We examined 225 letters and comments

published in the local daily newspaper La Provincia di Como between Sept 23 and Oct

7, which corresponded to the initial peak of concern for the wall. These constituted all

items on the topic received by the newspaper during that period, except those that were

screened by the newspaper redaction for abusive language and excessive length (LPDC,

25 Sept. 09 to 07 Oct. 09).

We also analyzed the record of 382 communication items posted during the same period

of an online group that had formed on a social networking website as a response to the

wall. The group had formed on September 23 and grew to about 7000 people on

October 7 (up to 8000 later on); 228 people took part in the discussion analyzed (151

males, 73 females, 4 unidentified). These data were valuable for our analysis because

(1) they were was public, unfiltered and dated, allowing for a longitudinal study of

dominant themes; and (2) this particular web-based group had played a role in the

mobilization of the residents against the project and particularly in the organization of

public protests. We analyzed all texts with the coding frame summarised in Appendix A

at the end of the thesis. Quotes from letters and Internet discussions are reported to

illustrate various knowledge claims and arguments (Bernard 2006); these were

translated into English for the purpose of this article (Appendix B).


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4.4.2 Results

4.4.2.1 A social movement grounded in a sense of injustice, community and place

The PCA results are summarised in Table 4. The first three principal components

together explained 51.1% of the variance. After an orthogonal rotation, we identified

three defining themes for these clusters of responses that had internal consistency (Table

4, de Vaus 2002). Questions relating to attachment, personal memories and pride

associated with the Lake were grouped in a ‘lake attachment’ variable (‘vA’). Those

relating to issues of legitimacy and soundness of the project, and transparency of the

implementation process referred to the different forms of symbolic, economic and actual

power sustained by different authorities, and were therefore grouped in a ‘political

discontent’ variable (‘vP’). Finally, questions relating to a sense of shared emotion,

social unity and efficacy against the project were grouped in a ‘social cohesion’ variable

(‘vS’) 14.

We are mindful that the three integrated variables vA, vP and vS cannot be considered

as scales measuring a single construct. The series of questions that constituted them

were designed to capture some of the complexity of the concepts they relate to (like

attachment to place, see Scannel and Gifford 2010) and, as a result, their internal

consistency values are average (Cronbach’s alpha values [0.5 – 0.7]). With this caution

in mind, it is still useful to conduct further analyses with these composite variables

computed by integrating the three groups of questions shown in Table 4.

A series of t-tests showed that the respondents who had engaged in any mode of protest

against the wall scored significantly higher in the three variables vA, vS and vP, than

the people who didn’t protest (Table 5). Overall, the political component (vP) of the

protest was the most salient in the t-test results, particularly for people who engaged in

signing petitions and in public demonstrations. People who wrote a letter to the

newspapers scored higher in lake attachment (vA), and social cohesion (vS) was

particularly relevant to people who signed a petition.

14 The conception of the 'wall’ as a threat to the city’s economy scored high in factors vP and vS because the economic argument may be part of a political rationale about the legitimacy of the structure (vP) while the word ‘threat’ in the question may have suggested defensive group response related to vS. It scored higher in ‘social cohesion’ factor and was integrated to the corresponding variable (vS).


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Table 4: PCA loadings for questionnaire items after rotation (Varimax with Kaiser normalisation);

questionnaire statements were translated from Italian

Questionnaire statements translated from Italian Component loadings (orthogonally rotated)

I am proud of the lake landscape .569 .268 -.268

The lake reminds me of important moments in my life .818 -.082 .109

I feel attached to the lake .796 .134 .167

The majority of Comaschi was opposed to the wall construction (from September 2009)

.041 .696 .035

From the beginning, I trusted in the efficacy of the protest against the wall

.088 .727 -.051

The wall would be useful to prevent floods in Como† .074 .216 .740

The wall is a threat to the economy of Como (tourism) -.024 .537 .452

The wall would have allowed storing more water in the lake, allowing a larger use in the agricultural districts downstream†

.120 -.089 .618

The commune has provided sufficient information on the project prior to starting the construction†

-.083 .129 .632

I was very surprised by the construction of the wall .129 .481 .274

Composite variable vA vS vP

Cronbach’s alpha 0.611 0.552 0.506

† The response was reverse-scored for analysis


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Table 5: Differences in vA, vS and vP scores for different protest groups

Any form of

protest Letter to

newspapers Petition Public demonstration

NO YES NO YES NO YES NO YES

vA

N 257 206 389 35 299 125 324 100 Mean (SD)

4.22 (0.70)

4.48 (0.63)

4.30 (0.69)

4.68 (0.40)

4.27 (0.68)

4.48 (0.67)

4.28 (0.71)

4.50 (0.57)

t Sig. (2-tailed)

-4.23 .000

-4.96 .000

-2.91 .004

-3.21 .002

vS

N 229 195 353 35 268 120 293 95 Mean (SD)

3.75 (0.83)

4.08 (0.71)

3.87 (0.81)

4.16 (0.65)

3.80 (0.83)

4.1 (0.68)

3.86 (0.82)

4.02 (0.74)

t Sig. (2-tailed)

-4.31 .000

-2.42 .020

-3.88 .000

-1.69 .091 (n.s.)

vP

N 228 194 351 35 267 119 291 95 Mean (SD)

3.92 (0.80)

4.32 (0.67)

4.09 (0.78)

4.37 (0.65)

4.00 (0.78)

4.36 (0.71)

4.02 (0.81)

4.39 (0.60)

t Sig. (2-tailed)

-5.49 .000

-2.09 .037

-4.32 .000

-4.84 .000

Note: vA, vS and vP are not normally distributed. The sample size is sufficiently large for the Central

Limit Theorem to hold. We conducted nonparametric Mann-Whitney tests that highlighted the same

significant differences with equivalent significance levels.


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The text analysis confirmed the strong political dimension for the protest found in the

questionnaire data: political themes were present in 52% of the letters and 45% of the

items from the online conversation, in particular as a critique of the insufficient and

distorted information provided by decision-makers to the public. This is expressed for

instance in the following quote (see also quote 1, Appendix B):

It is certainly not easy for a regular citizen to have access to a public work project and it is certainly not trivial either to interpret it for those who are not an engineer or architect. What has been fed to us, the ignorant people, were three ‘rendering’ images and on those there was no wall or, and this is very important to highlight, any ‘significant’ lifting of the sidewalk. (Letter published on 25 Sept. 2009)

Place-related concerns were evident in 69% of the letters and 21% of the online

comments, reflecting the strong association of vA with letter-writing as a form of

protest that was found in the questionnaire data. Place attachment was often expressed

by the use of the adjective ‘mio’ (mine) or ‘nostro’ (our) followed by ‘lago’ (lake),

‘lungolago’ (lakeshore) or ‘citta’ (city). For example, a woman from Como wrote (see

also quotes 2-4):

I want to see my fish again, big, small, sick, fast, slow, they are mine. The clean bottom in winter and the clear waters, dirty in summer, green, opaque, but it is my lake. (Letter published on 28 Sept. 2009)

Nonparametric bivariate correlations indicated modest but significant correlations in the

questionnaire data between vA and vS (Kendall’s τ=0.154, N=420, p<0.001), between

vS and vP (τ=0.178, N=420, p<0.001) as well as, to a lesser extent, between vA and vP

(τ=0.095, N=419, p<0.05). These links were apparent in the qualitative data, too. For

instance, the political theme of the accountability for the situation was prominent in

both the letters (55%) and online comments (28%) and it was associated with emotional

content that often explicitly referred to place-related attachments and concerns about

aesthetic and/or cultural values associated with the city, the Lake and/or the lakeshore

(for instance quote 2). In both datasets, local attachment to place was also associated

with a social dimension expressed as the sensation of belonging to a community being

threatened in one aspect of its identity and continuity by the disruption of a familiar

landscape (quotes 5-7). The following quote illustrates the kind of reaction, commonly


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found in the analysis, where political discontent, social cohesion and attachment to

place were all embedded. By illustrating the correlations found between vA, vP and vS

in the questionnaire responses, it also shows the value of combining quantitative and

qualitative data:

Those who have allowed and realised such a disgrace ignoring the history of Como offend the city by injuring it in its peculiar vocation, insult the citizens and humiliate the future generations. (Letter by Como resident published on 25 Sept. 2009)

The interplay of attachment to place and sense of community also resulted in a form of

expectation by some citizens that decision-makers, born and raised in Como, would

share and bear their own entrenched feelings for a place that meant much to them and

act accordingly, as the following quote suggests (see also quote 8): ‘I would never have

thought that persons born in Como could have allowed such a disaster’ (Letter

published on 25/09/09).

4.4.2.2 ‘The rise of a wall that unites the people’: place-related emotion and

engagement

Analyses of variance of questionnaire responses revealed that respondents’ gender and

level of education had no significant effect on their scores in any of the three variables

vA, vP and vS. Their age had a significant effect on vP only (F(3) = 4.607, p < 0.01),

with post-hoc Tukey's HSD tests showing that 35-54 and 55+ years old scored

significantly higher in vP than 18-24 years old at the 0.01 level of significance15. The

frequency of contact with the Lake (from less than once a month to every day) had a

significant effect on vA (F(3) = 4.9, p < 0.01) but not on vS or vP. A series of t-tests

showed in turn that people who reported engaging in various activities on the lakeshore

(see Table 6) scored significantly higher in lake attachment (vA), but not in political

15 Other differences were not significant


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discontent (vP) or social cohesion (vS), than those who didn’t (Table 6). 16

Table 6: Differences in vA, vS and vP scores for different groups of lakeshore users

Lakeshore activities Socialising with family

and friends Practicing sports Thinking and reflecting

NO YES NO YES NO YES

vA

N 241 222 351 112 212 251

Mean (SD) 4.24 (0.78)

4.43 (0.54)

4.27 (0.73)

4.54 (0.43)

4.18 (0.78)

4.46 (0.56)

t -3.07 -4.77 -4.31

Sig. (2-tailed) .002 .000 .000

vS

N 215 209 313 109 182 242

Mean (SD) 3.91 (0.81)

3.89 (0.78)

3.88 (0.81)

3.96 (0.75)

3.87 (0.84)

3.92 (0.76)

t 0.235 0.193 -0.759

Sig. (2-tailed) .659 .365 .448

vP

N 214 208 313 109 182 240

Mean (SD) 4.13 (0.80)

4.08 (0.74)

4.09 (0.79)

4.15 (0.69)

4.03 (0.78)

4.16 (0.76)

t 0.614 0.367 -1.69

Sig. (2-tailed) .499 .466 .093

Note: vA, vS and vP are not normally distributed. The sample size is sufficiently large for the Central Limit Theorem to hold. We conducted nonparametric Mann-Whitney tests that highlighted the same significant differences with equivalent significance levels.

For Como residents, attachment to the city itself and the perception that the Lake is

inseparable from it were associated with higher vA scores (respectively F(4) = 9.52, p <

0.001, and F(4) = 8.60, p < 0.001) as well as higher vS scores (respectively F(4) = 3.40,

16 Beyond local attachments to the Lake and the city, references to the aesthetic dimension of the landscape and its moral implications brought international coverage to the case, both via media and social networks. This aspect, corresponding to the ‘physical place’ component of Scannell and Gifford’s framework (2010) was not directly explored through the questionnaire but appeared in 32% of letters and 9% of online comments (quotes 24-25). One person spoke, for instance, in the name of ‘all those who love, not only Como and its lake, but the beautiful in general’ (Letter published on 26/09/09).


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p < 0.05, and F(4) = 4.43, p < 0.01) (see corresponding quotes 9-12); there was also a

significant effect of the length of residence of Comaschi respondents on their

attachment to the Lake (F(4) = 2.69, p < 0.05; see also Lewicka 2011).

39.5% of respondents reported that they had actively informed themselves about the

project before the media outbreak of ‘the wall’ (out of which 51.6% subsequently took

part in the protest movement). This early proactive behavior (at least reported as such)

was significantly correlated with lake attachment score vA (τ=0.107, N=414, p<0.01),

but not with vS or vP. The majority of respondents did not actively seek information

before they heard or read about the ‘wall’, a detachment pre-project implementation that

was also revealed in the qualitative data (expressed in 11% of the letters and 5% of

items from the online discussion). The following quote illustrates this phenomenon of

initial disengagement despite, in this case, the belief that the project was illegitimate. It

is related here to the idea of political compromise and rather low expectations of local

planning policy (see Gambetta and Origgi 2009):

The flood protection structures are useless, and it is not too late to say so. All those who live near the lake know very well that when the lake floods it comes out through the manholes, the garages, the elevator shafts. There is not, and there will never be, a barrier able to stop the lake, as it has been so for two thousand years. So many of us voted for [the mayor] because of the political coalition, holding our noses about this project because we were thinking of the new lakeshore promenade. (Letter published on 05 Oct. 2009)

The disengagement between citizens and decision-makers was two-way, as illustrated

by a political actor in the affair who, as the protest was gaining momentum, commented

that ‘citizens should worry about the walls of their own houses’ (LPDC, 20 Oct. 2010).

As a result of such detachment, neither the desirability or the scientific grounds for the

project had not been thoroughly discussed before it started and were not clear for some

citizens, who challenged them a posteriori. While direct references to the frequency of

floods and lake level dynamics were few (2.5% of all documents), some advanced

hydrological arguments to suggest that the scale of the project was excessive compared

to what they described as a real, but relatively minor, issue of floods in Como (for

instance quotes 13-15 highlighting the recent improvements in the dam management

and their mitigating effect on flooding, as seen in the first part of this article). Others


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disputed the economical (quote 16) and cultural (quotes 17-19) legitimacy of the

structure with, at one extreme, a member of the Internet group who emphasised the

historical and cultural dimension of floods to oppose all kinds of protective intervention

on the shore: ‘The lakeshore had to be left the way it was - the floods are part of the

history of our city’ (Comment posted on 25/09/09, accessed on 14/04/10).

As a result, the structure being constructed triggered expressions of emotion in the form

of surprise, but also outrage, sadness and/or shame (see quotes 2; 20-23), which were

found in 39% of the letters and 36% of the online items, mainly in the first few days of

the reaction to the wall (Fig. 28, red markers and trend). This confirmed impressions of

a strong emotional dimension for the movement gathered on site during the first days of

the protest (Field notes 9, 16 and 18 Oct 2009). The frequencies of expression of the

different themes in time (Fig. 28) suggest that emotions related to the loss of the

familiar landscape (Fig. 28, red and magenta trends) were particularly present at the

start of the protest movement and may have acted as a trigger. Political and technical

arguments against the structure in construction increased with time to foster the protest,

as people became more informed about the project (Fig. 28, black trend). The

newspaper articles showed similar thematic patterns, from the ‘shock’ (Letter published

on 25/09/09) of the loss of the landscape and the relevance of the lake, to questions

about the technical and political legitimacy of the project and the use of public money.

Figure 28: Theme frequency plot for online discussion platform. Horizontal axis is the item number;

items were plotted in chronological order (intervals within grey lines represent one day), vertical axis is

the count frequency for each theme (moving average over 30 items centred on item i). Lines are best-fit

linear trends for different themes. Vertical grey line represents one day.


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4.4.3 Limitations of the analysis

The case prompted several other lines of inquiry that we were unable to address given

the available resources and the timing of our research. In particular, the specificities of

the project variants and the political/financial dimensions prior to and during its

implementation were admittedly important elements of the story from a planning

perspective, but were not within the scope of this paper. These latter aspects are

embedded in the broader concept of the public’s political discontent regarding the

project implementation, which we address without entering in any technical detail.

Another limitation of the socio-cultural analysis was the data range that extended

mainly within respondents with a strong opinion against the wall. Only three textual

items did not explicitly oppose the structure as it was being built on the lakeshore (out

of 623). Only 8.1% of questionnaire respondents declared certain indifference or a

positive attitude toward the construction. Although this assessment confirmed an

impression of quasi-unanimity against the wall gathered from the three weeks of field

work (Field notes 1 to 23 Oct 2009), we are mindful that our data streams are likely to

be biased towards ‘anti-wall’ protesters and activists because (1) the local newspaper La

Provincia took a strong position early on and played a significant role in focusing on,

relaying information about, and extending the protest (Field notes 16 and 20 Oct 09);

(2) the sample of questionnaire respondents was also strongly affiliated with the

newspaper through the distribution method (89.2% of respondents to the questionnaire

had read about the story of the wall in the local newspaper); and (3) the online group

was explicitly created to focus the protest. Our study did not therefore allow, and was

not designed, for a statistical generalization. It was however relevant to explore the

nature of the protest against the structure in construction, especially as it was eventually

dismantled.


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4.5 Discussion

4.5.1 A case for integrated and adaptive catchment management

The analysis identified two interrelated issues with the planning approach that led to the

failure of the flood defence intervention in Como. It was shown to be a fragmented

approach, both:

• hydrologically: the project design did not account for potential flood prevention

benefit of other possible water management measures in the catchment; and

• socially: a two-way disconnect between decision-makers and citizens appeared to

be an important cause of the policy failure.

The reasons that led to the choice of a single major structure over a combination of

measures for flood prevention appeared to be political rather than scientific. In

particular a funding opportunity for the project and the chance to combine it with the

renovation of the lakeshore promenade. Embedding flood prevention policy into a

catchment management plan would, on the other hand, require rather complex and

costly reforms, especially since the upstream reservoirs are controlled by private

companies and some of them are located in Switzerland.

The social disconnect emphasised in this study was typical of a technocratic approach

(Fischer 2000) that is still predominant in Italian environmental management. In this

context, public participation is not usually considered relevant by decision-makers and

the public is, in response, generally ‘skeptical and half-hearted’ with regard its possible

participation in policy-making (Massarutto et al. 2003: 23). In the Como case there was

little communication by decision-makers about the project, even during the

implementation phase when some modifications were made. There was also a relatively

low proactive interest amongst the public with regard to the project, which to some

extent reflects a cultural attitude (Massarutto et al. 2003; Enserink et al. 2007), but was

also due to the technical nature of the available information and thus the lack of

opportunity to develop and express informed opinions about it (see Fisher 2000, Barbier

2005).


106

We argue that, from a long-term perspective, an integrated and adaptive approach to the

management of the Adda catchment is required to address the issues highlighted in this

study. From a hydrological perspective, a combination of multiple, flexible measures

(possibly including structural ones) would be a more desirable option than isolated

interventions for the issue of floods in Como and for the management of the catchment

in general (see also Guariso et al. 1986, Gandolfi et al. 2007). This is especially true

considering the uncertainty associated with the catchment’s near-future hydrology,

which calls for coordination across multiple scales and sectors of activity (Grothmann et

al. 2009). For decision-makers in Como, this requires a transition from a ‘flood defence’

policy focused on local control, to a ‘flood management’ approach focused on

catchment-wide learning (see Johnson et al. 2007: Table 1).

From a social perspective, the focus on learning of integrated and adaptive management

approaches would also be likely to improve communication and understanding between

decision-makers and citizens (Beierle and Konisky 2001; Goldstein 2009). Participatory

processes have been shown to enhance the knowledge base of: (a) citizens (Huitema et

al. 2010), which in the case of floods in Como could have resulted in an early response

to concerns such as those expressed in quotes 12-16; and (b) experts and decision-

makers (Bijlsma et al. 2011), at least with regard to the perceptions and values of

citizens (Huitema et al. 2010). In the case of Como, it is hard to imagine that the

upheaval of the ‘wall’ could have happened had there been a genuine and ongoing

interaction between citizens and decision-makers. The structure might have been

altogether different and more in agreement with citizens’ values, or the same structure

might have been completed, provided citizens were confident about the temporary

nature of the ‘wall’ and its impacts on lake views, and that they were satisfied with the

prospective of the finished project.

The legislative framework for integrated catchment management in Italy has been in

place since 1989, and scientists have demonstrated interest and capabilities for its

development in the Adda catchment (Gandolfi et al. 2007). With respect to public

participation in policy-making, it has been argued that, in Italy, ‘horizontal’ and

informal participation is more efficient than structured and hierarchical participation

(Massarutto et al. 2003: 24-25). In any case, there is a need to bring decision-makers

and stakeholders (including citizens) together so that they can learn about each other’s


107

perspectives (McLain and Lee 1996; Lebel et al. 2010). Below we suggest that a focus

on place meanings may facilitate the engagement of citizens in such process.

4.5.2 Engaging the public around place attachments and meanings

Emotions are pervasive in the relationships people have with their local environments

(see also Mitchell 1993) and these can be pivotal when it comes to environmental

planning: able, for instance, to trigger a social movement (see also Mannarini et al.

2009; Devine-Wright 2009; and Heatherington 2005). The defence of one’s identity

plays an important role in the emergence of social movements (Poletta and Jasper

2001), and this is true for place-defence movements. As summarised by Stedman (2002:

577): ‘we are willing to fight for places that are central to our identities’.

This was also the case in Como as the analysis showed. Most questionnaire respondents

declared they hadn’t been proactive about seeking information about the project, which

is considered relatively normal in a technocratic framework where policy is delegated to

experts (Massarutto et al. 2003). Qualitative accounts also reported that citizens had

been taking relatively little notice of previous failures or suboptimal planning policies.

For the wall, however, the mobilization was exceptional, although reactive and

oppositional, largely because the lakeshore was a particularly meaningful place for

people.

The question now is: are we willing to engage in decision-processes for places that are

central to our identities? Preliminary insights from our results suggest that it is the case

in Como. We already showed that people who had sought information about the project

prior to the media outburst were those with the strongest attachment to the lake.

Complementary t-tests showed that people who attended the city council meetings on

the topic of the flood-defence structure or followed them on a local television channel

(the council room had limited space for public attendants) also scored significantly

higher in attachment to the Lake than those who didn’t (t=-2.322; p<0.05), although

they didn’t score higher in social cohesion (t=-1.378; n.s.) or political discontent (t=-

1.740; n.s.).


108

Attachment to the Lake was itself enhanced by physical proximity, frequency of contact

and engagement with it through various activities. People’s engagement in the protest in

turn fostered their willingness to further protect and enhance the lakeshore: more than

three months after the dismantlement of the wall, 66.7% of people who responded to the

questionnaire declared feeling more engaged with the planning and conservation of the

Lake than before the affair had taken place. This was especially true for people who had

participated in protest actions (t=-4.031; p<0.001).

We suggest that the articulation and analysis of attachments to place have the potential

to enhance public participation in policy-making, and to address the type of disjuncture

between local politics and citizens that was observed in Como (see also Cheng et al.

2003; Davenport and Anderson 2005; Manzo and Perkins 2006). Indeed the protest was

a form of participation in planning policy focused on ‘place’, although reactive (see also

Devine-Wright 2009). More studies are needed to evaluate the potential of place

attachment in enhancing public participation at the early stages of planning processes,

and to better understand the relationship between place attachment and social cohesion

in the context of public participation in local planning policy (Lewicka 2011).

4.6 Conclusion

4.6.1 Place-based integration of technical and socio-cultural knowledge

This study showed how insights from the environmental and social sciences are both

pivotal to environmental planning, as they inform different yet interdependent

components of a single project. Analyses distilling human perceptions and emotions

should thus be integrated into the insights and implications of environmental sciences in

a way that is accessible to planners (Manzo and Perkins 2006; Webler and Tuler 2010).

Using mixed methods in this study, we first showed that the flood policy failure in

Como emerged from an approach to flood management that was hydrologically and

socially fragmented, and we argued that this failure constitutes a strong case for the

consideration of flood management as embedded in an integrated and adaptive approach

to catchment management (as recommended by EU 2007). We then showed that forms

of attachment for the Lake and its city shore played a trigger role in the protest


109

movement against the flood defence structure in construction; and finally, we discussed

the potential of such attachments to enhance people’s willingness to participate in

decision-making processes.

Meanings and attachments related to particular places constitute a form of experiential

knowledge of these places, which should be given a more central place in the dialogue

between the public and decision-makers in environmental management. The articulation

of an inclusive and relational environmental policy, concerned with the physical and

socio-cultural connections that constitute each place, may be fostered through programs

that interweave scientific and local knowledge such as those described by Swanson et al

(2008) or Selman et al. (2010) whereby local residents and scholars from the sciences,

the humanities and the arts are brought together to engage collaboratively with local

landscapes, in connection with human perceptions and emotions, as well as ecosystem

dynamics.


We wish to thank Malcolm Hollick, Nick Harney and Ron Oxburgh for their critical

reviews of previous versions of this article. We are grateful to the Consorzio dell’Adda

for providing hydro-meteorological data and to Casper Boon for his technical input with

the implementation of the web survey. The support of the newspaper La Provincia di

Como was greatly valued as it provided a way to distribute the survey. Finally, we

would like to thank all the people in Como who contributed to the study by responding

to the questionnaire or discussing the issue in the field. At the time of the study, the first

author was a recipient of an IPRS scholarship funded by the Australian government and

a living allowance funded partly by the Water Corporation of Western Australia and

UWA. Any opinions, findings and conclusions expressed in this material are those of

the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the individuals or agencies

acknowledged.


110

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Chapter 5. Contributions of fishers’ knowledge to physical limnology

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Chapter 5 Fishing nets and data loggers: contributions

of local knowledge to physical limnology

Laborde, S., J. Imberger, and S. Toussaint.

5.1 Abstract

This article shows how local knowledge may be valuably integrated to a scientific

approach in the study of large and complex hydrological systems where data collection

at high resolution is a challenge. This claim is supported through a study of the

hydrodynamics of a large lake where qualitative data collected from professional fishers

were combined with theory to develop a hypothesis that was then verified by numerical

modelling. First the fishers’ narratives were found to describe with accuracy internal

wave motions that were evident in water column temperature records, which built

confidence in their practical knowledge of the lake’s hydrodynamics. Second, local

knowledge accounts emphasised the recurrent formation of mesoscale gyres and return

flows in certain zones of the Lake in stratified conditions, which did not appear in the

physical data due to limitations of sampling resolution. We hypothesised that these

features developed predominantly due to the interaction of wind-driven internal motions

with the lake’s bathymetry, and the earth’s rotation in the widest areas of the basin.

Numerical simulation results corroborated the fishers’ descriptions of the flow paths and

supported the hypothesis about their formation. We conclude that the collaboration

between scientific and local knowledge groups, although an unusual approach for a

physical discipline of the geosciences, is worth exploring in the pursuit of a more

comprehensive understanding of complex geophysical systems such as large lakes.


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5.2 Introduction

The hydrodynamics of stratified lakes is highly relevant to ecosystem governance

(Ostrovsky et al. 1996; Cuypers et al. 2010) and also, in many lakes, to the practices of

professional fishers. While fundamental and applied limnologists collaborate to advance

the field of physical limnology, the potential contribution of fishers’ local practical

knowledge has not been addressed.

Local Knowledge (LK) also known as Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and, in

some cases, Indigenous Knowledge (Inglis 1993) arises from the way people live and

work in their local environment; it is embedded in their long-standing practices, skills,

traditions and narratives, spanning across a broad range of temporal and spatial scales.

While a few decades ago most research on aquatic environments was conducted on field

sites that were located near the researchers’ university or research centre, today the

advances of telecommunication technologies and international scientific collaboration

allow much of environmental research to be conducted with limited time in the field (a

comparative look at editions from the 1960s and the 2000s of a journal such as

Limnology and Oceanography illustrates this point), limiting at the same time

researchers’ exposure to LK.

In the last decade however, there has been an increasing and explicit academic interest

for LK in the science and governance of environmental systems, particularly in ecology

(Johannes et al. 2000; Calheiros et al. 2000; Gadgil et al. 2003). Despite this trend that

has shown the potential benefits of considering LK in environmental research (Couzin

2007), studies that attempt to do so are still few, especially in the physical sciences,

because: (1) LK is generally qualitative, requiring social science methods to be accessed

and interpreted; and (2) there is no way to quantify the uncertainty of information

obtained through LK, making it difficult to integrate with a natural science framework

(Huntington 2000).

In this article we show how local knowledge may be useful also in the physical

geosciences. We use fishers’ practical knowledge to formulate a hypothesis that, after

validation by numerical modelling, lead to a greater understanding of the

hydrodynamics of a large subalpine Italian lake. The article starts by introducing the

lake, basic aspects of its hydrodynamics and relevant practices of the fishers. We then


121

compare some of the heuristics fishers discussed with records of water column

temperature and wind data, to establish the coincidence of the two types of knowledge,

scientific and local, with regard to large scale physical processes in the lake. We then

address some of the fishers’ accounts of recurrent gyres and return flows in certain

zones of the lake, mesoscale hydrodynamic processes that were not evident in the

quantitative data since their spatial scale was smaller than the sampling resolution. We

turn to results from basin-scale numerical modelling simulations to confirm fishers’

observations of these flow features and to discuss their formation. We conclude by

discussing the broader methodological implications of this study for environmental

science.

5.2.1 Lake Como (Lario)

Lake Como is a deep and narrow lake stretching 45 km between the mountain regions

of the Alps and the agro-industrial plains of the Brianza. Its morphology and wind field

are complex as the Lake has three arms that extend respectively north (Alto Lago),

southeast (ramo di Lecco) and southwest (ramo di Como). Regular winds on the Lake

are the Tivano, a light morning northerly wind, and the Breva, an afternoon southerly;

the Vento is a violent and less-predictable northerly wind that may last several days. A

seasonal thermal stratification develops in spring in the lake’s water column,

strengthens throughout summer and persists until late autumn and, most years, also

throughout winter in a weak and deep form (Chiaudani et al. 1986). The zone of rapid

temperature change in the water column (the metalimnion, encompassing the

thermocline that marks the sharpest temperature gradient) that separates the upper

mixed layer (the epilimnion) from the denser bottom layer (the hypolimnion) deepens

through the year, from the near surface in spring to about 15 m in summer, through to

30 to 40 m in autumn (Fig. 29a).

Water column temperature records evidence wind-driven internal waves along the

lake’s thermocline, in particular an internal uninodal vertical seiche (see schematic Fig.

29b) that is triggered by northerly wind events, has a period of about four days in

summer and can lead to large interface displacements (Laborde et al. 2010). Spectra of

isotherms displacements also evidence a higher vertical mode internal wave with a


122

phase keyed to the diurnal wind patterns. The lake’s main inflows drain water from

alpine catchments in the north and generally intrude as interflows during the stratified

period, and interplay with wind patterns and the earth’s rotation to foster southward

currents in the lake’s metalimnion that tend to be stronger on the western side of the

basin (Laborde et al. 2010).

5.2.2 Fishers’ practices: free-drifting nets

Small boat professional fishing is carried out in the Lake by about 30 professional full-

time fishers, for a total catch of about 200 tons of fish per year, of which the species of

landlocked shad (agone) and whitefish (coregone) together represent between 75 and

80%. Throughout the stratified period (April to November), the shad is caught within

the epilimnion while the whitefish, a salmonid, is found in the cooler waters of the

lower metalimnion where the temperatures are within its preferred range of 12 to 16

degrees (Fig. 29a). The capture of these species is carried out with large drifting gill

nets (called pendenti and oltane), a common fishing technique requiring consideration

of water motions throughout the upper 30 (in summer) to 50 m (in autumn) of the water

column. The nets are ‘set free’ at dusk, in the middle of the Lake and perpendicular to

the shores, constituting drifting barriers that may be 700 m long and 6.5 m (for the

pendenti) to 9 m high (for the oltane). A weighted ground-line (most often a lead cored

rope) and an upper line tied to regularly distributed surface floats keep each net

vertically extended: by adjusting the string length between the floats and the upper line,

fishers can target different depths and thus different species of fish (refer to Fig 29b for

a schematic representation). The nets are attached to buoys and lights so they can be

followed from shore during the night and located when the fisher comes to recover

them, usually just before dawn. This routine is normally carried out nightly, with

variations in targeted species throughout the year.

Fig. 29 (b) and (c) show the schematics of the nets’ displacement in response to

different types of internal motions in the lake: wind-induced seiches (b) and gyres and

return flows (c). Understanding these motions is part of the fishers’ work: while

minimising the distance to retrieve the nets is not as relevant as it was before most boats


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were equipped with engines (about 40 years ago), the need to avoid entanglement

between nets that were set at different depths by neighbour fishers remains relevant.

Figure 29: Thermal structure of Lake Como and displacement of fishing nets due to internal motions (a) 1-day moving average of water column temperature (shading) in Lake Como averaged across thermistor chains T1 (SW), T2 (N) and T3 (SE) throughout the year 2007; depth of isotherms 12 and 16 (blue lines) representing the preferred habitat of whitefish caught with oltane (b) schematic drawing (section view) of the displacements of two types of drift nets (pendenti for the capture of shad - red nets - and oltane for whitefish - blue nets), due to a wind-driven internal seiche (the dashed line represents the density interface – black at the lower time bound and grey at the upper time bound); top and bottom panels are separated in time by half the wave period. (c) Schematic drawing (map view) of the displacements of nets (oltane) due to gyres and return flows.

5.3 Material and methods

Qualitative data documenting the fishers’ LK of the Lake hydrodynamics were collected

using social science research methods. The first author conducted a three-month period

of ethnographic field work in summer-autumn 2010 that involved participant

observation of the fishers’ practices on and off the boat, in-depth interviewing and

participatory mapping whereby patterns of net paths were drawn by the researcher

and/or the interviewed fisher on an outline of the zone of the Lake relevant to the

fishing practice. The interviews were then transcribed and analyzed, and the maps were

re-examined in light of the corresponding interview and digitised. The research was

approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of UWA, and informed consent

was obtained from all participants.

The fishers were approached with some a priori knowledge of the lake’s

hydrodynamics (Laborde et al. 2010), which helped to identify the connections between


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local and scientific knowledge, particularly through the fishers’ accounts of well-known

primary processes and the potential scientific interest of other narratives relating to

locally unexplored processes such as the transversal variability of flow patterns. We

suggest that this is an important point for studies that aim to integrate SK and LK: one

‘reads’ local accounts differently in light of scientific results, and the other way around.

Therefore, making the most of interactions with LK holders requires a form of dialogue

between qualitative and quantitative information.

The physical data included wind speed and direction as well as water column

temperature from the water surface to a depth of 150 m, recorded by thermistor chains

at three in-lake stations located at the end of each arm of the Lake (Fig. 30a, black

stars). The temporal resolution was 20 sec and the vertical resolution of temperature

sensors along the chains ranged from 0.25 m near the surface to 20 m in the deep

hypolimnion, allowing a long-term, fine-resolution documentation of the lake’s thermal

structure. Relative humidity, air temperature, short-wave radiation and net radiation

were measured at the northern station, while rainfall was obtained through the regional

Agency for Environmental Protection (ARPA Lombardia), and inflows, outflows and

lake level data through the Consortium for the Adda River (Consorzio dell’Adda).

The lake’s hydrodynamic model was produced using the finite difference Estuary Lake

and Coastal Ocean Model (ELCOM) that solves the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes

equations and scalar-transport equations with the hydrostatic and Boussinesq

approximations (Hodges et al. 2000). The 3D grid of the lake-domain had a horizontal

resolution of 200 m and a vertical resolution ranging from 0.5 m to 86 m, with the finest

resolution from the surface down to 20m and a regular increase to the coarsest

resolution in the deep hypolimnion. The model was initialised with a mean temperature

profile for Jan 1, 2007 00:00 and ran for the full year of 2007 with a time step of 1 min,

solely forced with atmospheric and water fluxes data. This was to assess the model’s

capability to reproduce seasonal variations as well as phenomena occurring over a few

hours such as internal waves, since the qualitative data covered these various timescales.

The reasons for choosing 2007 pertained to data availability. The performance of the

model was evaluated by calculating the set of statistics proposed by Willmott (1982) -

mean absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE) and index model

performance (d2, should approach unity) – for the water column temperature records


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from the three thermistor chains over the whole year (Table 7). The data matrix was

sub-sampled every 15 minutes to match the model output time series and the model

values were linearly interpolated onto the measurement depths after correction for

variations in water level. Data points deeper than 50 m were removed to avoid

enhancing model performance measures with data from the hypolimnion, which sees

very little temperature change over the year and was not relevant to the analysis carried

out in this article.

Table 7: Set of model performance statistics proposed by Willmott (1982) – Mean absolute error (MAE),

Root mean square error (RMSE) and normalised index of model performance (d2) for model output and

data at T1 (15 depths), T2 (13 depths) and T3 (8 depths)

T1 T2 T3

N 355272 406529 203614

MAE (o C) 0.8244 0.7702 1.0865

RMSE (o C) 1.2043 1.0714 1.4779

d2 [0-1] 0.9825 0.9859 0.9693

After validation, numerical results were extracted for comparison with the fishers’

accounts. The results presented in the frames in Fig. 30b were velocities averaged

between 12 m and 21 m depth, corresponding to temperatures ranging between 12 and

16 degrees for a period ranging from 12 to 16 of July 2007, a period chosen for its

regular and moderate wind forcing (Fig. 30b), strong stratification (Fig. 29a) and

relatively high inflows and outflow – conditions that we hoped would evidence the flow

patterns described by the fishermen. The temperature / depth range corresponds to the

lower metalimnion at this period, where the whitefish were found and the oltane nets

were set. Net depths in arm spans extracted from the interviews confirmed these depths.

Velocities were averaged overnight between 7 pm and 4 am, corresponding to typical

net setting and retrieving times.

To make a qualitative comparison with the flow paths described by the fishermen, the

trajectories of numerical drifters were also simulated using the available algorithms in


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ELCOM for semi-lagrangian, fixed-depth sail drifters (15). The drifters were

rectangular stiff sails 9 m high and 200 m wide, with total weight and drag coefficient

set to 30 kg and 0.5 respectively. The sails were stretching between 12 and 21 m depth

(like the oltane nets), and released at the same location every night at 7 pm and retrieved

the following morning at 4 am. The model calculated the drag force on the drifters using

the velocities at the relevant depths (12 to 21 m) at the location of the drifter’s

horizontal centroid at each time step. The drifters’ width was that of one grid cell, the

weight was an estimate based on fieldwork with the fishermen and the drag coefficient

(cd) was within the range obtained from empirical equations for netting (16).

The cumulative distances travelled by the drifters overnight were comparable to those

reported for the nets in regular conditions (in the order of one kilometre). Inertia had a

limited influence on the drifters’ motion, which was dominated by drag, so the

trajectories were not sensitive to the drifters’ weight. The paths of drifters with varying

cd displayed the same horizontal flow patterns and similar accumulated distances:

increasing cd up to 2, which is very high even for much thicker netting than is

considered here [16], led to increases in the distances travelled overnight by the drifters

that were well within the range of uncertainty associated with the qualitative and

relative nature of the fishers’ accounts of distances travelled by their nets. For example,

doubling cd to 1 led the drifters to travel an average of about 100 m overnight, and a cd

value of 2 led to an increase of about 150m. For comparison, a variability of several

hundred meters was associated with the fishers’ accounts of the average distances

travelled by their nets in common weather conditions.

5.4 Results

5.4.1 Fishers’ knowledge of the lake’s seasons and dominant currents

The fishers’ practical knowledge of: (a) the depth of the seasonal thermocline and

strength of the stratification (data in Fig. 29a), and (b) the existence and period of wind-

induced internal seiches (Fig. 29b), was expressed in the interviews in the form of

‘limnological heuristics’ (quotes Table 8a and b) acquired through the practice of

drifting-net fishing. The depth of the seasonal stratification is a key variable for


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fishermen using oltane nets to catch whitefish, as this species inhabits the lower

metalimnion during the stratified period. Fishermen start setting these nets at about 1.5

m deep in spring and progressively lower the top of the nets, reaching about 30 to 40 m

in autumn (Table 8a, Fig. 29a). The pendenti, set in the epilimnion to catch shad, were

generally reported to travel the fastest and in the direction of the wind, opposite to the

oltane, therefore with the risk of encounter and entanglement between the two types of

nets (Fig. 29b).


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Table 8: Hydrodynamic processes (bold) and corresponding fishers’ heuristics or practices

(a) SEASONAL STRATIFICATION (Fig. 29a)

When you fish for whitefish in April, you set [the top of the nets] at one arm span (’spazza’), because they have always been caught at one arm span, since the world is world … After two months, you catch them at 3 arm spans, 3 ½ even, and then further down and down… (Alto Lago) > Fig. 29a

In summer, if we have nets near the surface or even in the first, say, 20 m, when there is a strong wind the nets travel far and fast; while in winter, even if there is a strong wind … the water ‘runs’ less at the surface: the velocity of the current is smaller, and it doesn’t last as long. (Centro Lago) > Fig. 29a,b

If we set deep nets in August, September or October, at say 60-70 m depth because the whitefish (‘bondella’) starts going down to these depths, if there is a strong wind we retrieve clean nets, so it means that the wind hasn’t moved the water that deep. If we happen to set [the nets] there in January or February they get full of leaves, of algae, so it means that the force of the wind has managed to reach down to these depths (Centro Lago) > Fig. 29a,b

(b) VERTICAL MODE 1 INTERNAL SEICHE (Fig. 29b)

When at the surface [the lake] goes north (‘in su’), underneath it goes south (‘in giù’); when at the surface it goes south; underneath it goes north. (general ‘rule’ stated by several fishermen interviewed) > Fig. 29b

In summer when there is a strong wind the water at the surface follows the wind first, and then it starts moving underneath too, in the other direction. (Centro Lago) > Fig. 29b

When there is the northerly [wind] for a day, the first night the undercurrent always goes north very fast. Then if you get 3 days of wind, the second night it goes south very fast. (Alto Lago) - Yes… it’s like this. But if you set nets near the surface it’s the other way around. And… say there’s a week of wind: when the wind stops, the lake keeps going. (other fisher from Alto Lago – joint interview) > Fig. 29b

(c) TRANSVERSAL VARIABILITY IN FLOW PATTERNS (Fig. 29c)

If I put the nets on the [western] shore of Dongo, or Cremia when there is the Adda, the nets tend to take the current and go [south] towards the Como or Lecco arms. In general they arrive near Bellano and then they turn around. If I set them on our [eastern] side here, they tend to go up north. (Alto Lago) > Fig. 29c, Fig. 30b1

What can happen is that over here, [the current] goes faster, from the middle to there, it goes less, therefore, the net that is set perpendicular to the shore is found rotated in the morning, (Lecco Arm) > Fig 30b5

This point blocks the current (…) one thing we may do if we don’t want the nets to travel too far is to set, say, half the net inside [behind] the point, so that half is stalled while the other half catches the current and it rotates it like this. In the end the current drags [the net] away, but you’ve saved time. (Centro Lago – Como arm) > Fig 30b2

[The lake] turns underneath, does a swirl. It comes [south], turns like this and comes back north on this shore. This is true at the depth of the oltane. If there are two sets of nets for the whitefish near each other and they go south, they might end up way down [south], but one or both may also turn in this embayment and come back towards north, and then turn again and go back towards south... So they may end up more or less where they were set, but in the reverse order! (…) [It is] because there are the points on the shores: where the river has made a promontory by filling up the lake, this causes a vortex. (Lecco arm) > Fig. 30b5


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The characteristics of the seasonal stratification and primary motions such as seiches

may be reasonably well described and predicted scientifically with theory (e.g. Imberger

and Patterson 1990) and few monitoring stations. These processes are documented in

Lake Como (e.g Fig. 29a; Laborde et al. 2010) through three in-lake stations – one at

the end of each of these arms (Fig. 30a, black stars) - that have been recording water

column temperature and meteorological variables since 2006. The fishermen do not

consult these data; their accounts of internal motions (Table 8a and b) corroborated the

temperature records independently, building confidence in their practical expertise of

the lake’s hydrodynamics (see Davis and Wagner 2003).

5.4.2 Observations of net drifting paths and cross-shore flow patterns

The fishermen also described the consistent formation of gyres and return flows in some

areas of the basin (quotes Table 8c; Fig. 29c). These qualitative accounts were

interesting from the perspective of physical limnology, because such features: (1) are

highly relevant to the horizontal distribution of catchment material, thus to the lake’s

ecology; and (2) require sampling at high spatial resolution to be documented

quantitatively. One possible approach to document these flow features in the field is to

use physical drifters, which, in essence, are what the fishing nets were, with the

advantage of being very large and flexible, and to be reset and followed every night in

most areas of the lake.

Fig. 30a shows a qualitative composite of all individual maps produced during

interviews for the zone in which each individual fisher generally said to operate with the

oltane. The blue arrows indicate the dominant direction of the water currents as inferred

from the paths reported as being most frequently followed by the nets overnight (from

sunset to sunrise) in stratified conditions (late spring - summer - autumn) when the nets

are set in the lower metalimnion. This map is only partially valid for ‘common’

meteorological conditions meaning the alternation of a tivano (light northerly wind) in

the morning and a moderate breva (medium southerly wind) in the afternoon, and the

absence of storm winds, especially the vento (strong northerly wind) that changes

circulation patterns by inducing large-amplitude seiching (Fig. 29b).


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Most fishermen highlighted that one could never be sure the nets would follow the

patterns indicated as ‘most likely’, even with the right wind conditions. This is why

professional fishermen follow the displacements of their drifting nets from the shore

throughout the night. Such uncertainty was particularly associated with the areas of the

Centro Lago and the Como arm. They expressed the velocity of nets relative to other

zones, other periods, other depths or other types of nets, and the distance traveled by the

nets varied each night, thus the length of the arrows on the map does not reflect

quantitative differences in velocity. The large scale velocity patterns that were recurrent

in the narratives of fishermen familiar with several zones of the Lake do however

appear on the map: the strongest currents were said to be in Alto lago and Centro lago

as well as the northern part of the Como arm (Fig. 30a (+)), while the southern part of

the Como arm and the Lecco arm were generally described as less prone to strong water

currents (Fig. 30a (-)) except after a strong northerly wind, which reportedly sets the

whole lake in motion. Fishers from different zones of the Lake also emphasised the

relevance of different forcings on the flow patterns: those who fished in the north (Alto

lago) stressed the role of the large inflows (Adda and Mera, Fig. 30a), those in the south

western arm (ramo di Como, the ‘closed’ arm) that of the storm winds and those of the

south eastern arm (ramo di Lecco) that of the outflow regime that is dam-regulated at

the south eastern end of the lake.

5.4.3 Modelling results

The practical observations by the fishermen of transversal variability in the water flows

(Table 8c; Fig. 29c; Fig. 30a) lead to a numerical modelling study to verify and further

describe the formation of these features. The frames on Fig. 30b display the results of a

numerical, three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulation of the Lake for comparison with

the qualitative map (Fig. 30a; see Methods). The velocities were output at depths

corresponding to temperatures ranging between 12 and 16 degrees, where the whitefish

are found at night and the oltane are normally set. Simulated velocities were averaged

overnight between 7 pm and 4 am, corresponding to typical net setting and retrieving

times, for a period in summer (July 12-17) that was chosen for regular wind conditions

corresponding to a ‘common’ pattern of moderate northerly wind in the morning and

southerly in the afternoon (Fig. 30b). Also, the summer stratification was strong and the


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inflows to, and outflow from, the Lake were high at this period (due to snowmelt) so

pronounced current patterns were expected.

Most of the flow features computed by the model (Fig 30b) corroborated descriptions

by the fishers’ (Table 8c, Fig. 30a). The black velocity arrows highlight the presence of

velocities opposing the main current in coves and embayments (Fig. 30b1, 3, 4 and 5),

or caused by larger scale features such as gyres in the widest zones of the Lake (Fig.

30b2). The blue tracks show the paths of numerical drifters that were set to provide

nightly drifting trajectories comparable with the paths of the drifting oltane nets (see

Methods for a description of the numerical drifters). These results evidenced patterns in

the drifting paths night after night, as well as the relative variability from one night to

another.

The main ‘north-south’ flow path in the lower metalimnion was a result of wind forcing,

combined in the north with inflow intrusions and in the southeast with the effect of the

proximity of the outflow. Most return flows reflected the pressure gradients caused by

the winding bathymetry, which was the element generally cited by fishermen to explain

the return flows and gyres (e.g. Table 8c). The Earth’s rotation also played a role in the

west-east variability of the flow by causing stronger velocities along the western shore

of the lake, and in the formation of the large features (gyres) in the widest parts of the

basin (Alto Lago and Centro Lago, Fig. 30b1 and 2) where the internal Rossby radius of

deformation calculated for 12-17 July was comparable to the basin width (~ 3.5 – 4

km).


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Figure 30: Comparison of qualitative map and model results of nightly patterns of metalimnetic motions. (a) Qualitative map of water currents inferred by the displacements of oltane nets, overnight, during the stratified period and in ‘common’ wind conditions (daily alternation of Tivano and Breva): composite of individual maps obtained from interviews and participatory mapping with professional fishermen. (b) Central map: records of wind speed and direction at stations T2 (N), T3 (SE) and T1 (SW) for July 12-17 2007; green and red shadings pertain to the regular winds called Tivano (northerly) and Breva (southerly). Frames: model results of velocities in the metalimnion for July 12 – 17 2007, output every 0.5 m (depth) and 15 min (time), then averaged overnight (7pm – 4am) and depth (12m - 21m). Return flows are highlighted in black. Blue lines are nightly (7pm – 4am) paths of constant-depth numerical sail drifters (one path per night between July 12 -17) set in the lower metalimnion (12m - 21m). Each green cross is the start of a path, each red circle its end. Frame locations are in (a).

5.5 Discussion

The local knowledge of Lake Como’s fishermen about flow patterns in the Lake was

considered through the lens of physical limnology, and the extent of their ‘practical

limnology’ was an interesting finding in itself. From a methodological perspective, the

fishers’ descriptions of mesoscale cross-shore current patterns at depths where they set

nets for whitefish (lower metalimnion) were particularly relevant, as they provided

qualitative information about flow features that were not evidenced in temperature data

records. These accounts elicited our interest and focused a numerical modelling study

that confirmed the occurrence and form of the gyres and return flows described by the

fishermen.


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Further work may be conducted to parse in more detail the formation of each of the flow

features described by the fishers and the model (Fig. 30, frames) in terms of the relative

contribution of wind-driven internal waves, inflows, the bathymetry of the basin and the

Earth’s rotation. This could involve the design of a field experiment focused on zones of

the Lake identified as relevant by LK accounts and modelling results. Our point here is

that qualitative data from local knowledge accounts, combined with processed-based

numerical modelling, provided a solid anchor point to further the study of horizontal

transport in the lake, particularly of mesoscale processes that may have been overlooked

due to their spatial scale by a study solely based on quantitative data.

Scientific Knowledge (SK) aims to explain and predict natural phenomena. Local

practical knowledge emerges from the adaptation of people’s life and work to natural

phenomena through their life-style, history, sociality and everyday practice. LK

therefore, like SK, gets to ‘know’ natural environments. This article does not suggest

that LK can substitute scientific research or provide insights that can be readily

integrated to science, or that it should or can always be integrated into scientific

research projects. We argue however that exposure to LK can foster and complement

environmental science by providing a long-term, situated perspective on processes

occurring in natural systems, which are the field sites of environmental scientists and

the sites of everyday life for LK holders. In so doing, such an approach can assist

environmental scientists in framing hypotheses and designing focused experiments, with

the ultimate aim to produce SK that is verifiable through standard scientific procedures

and easily transferable. We conclude that, when relevant and possible, the intellectual

engagement of scientists’ with other knowledge groups such as LK holders can result in

a more comprehensive scientific understanding of geophysical systems such as lakes.


We first thank the professional fishermen of the Lario (Lake Como) for sharing their

knowledge of the Lake with the first author. We are also grateful to Alberto Negri,

Jason Antenucci, Kenji Shimizu, Giulia Valerio, Ryan Alexander, Nick Harney and

Roman Stocker for their constructive comments on previous versions of the manuscript.

Meteorological and water column temperature data have been provided through the


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Plinius project coordinated by Centro di Cultura Scientifica 'A. Volta' and funded

collectively by the Como Province, Como Town Council, Como Chamber of

Commerce, Cariplo Foundation, Banca Intesa - San Paolo and Pliniana. The first author

conducted the research while benefiting from an International Postgraduate Research

Scholarship funded by the Australian Government through the Department of

Innovation, Industry, Science, and Research, as well as a Postgraduate Award funded by

UWA. The first author also acknowledges the School of Social and Cultural Studies of

UWA for providing research funding to support the fieldwork.

5.7 References

Calheiros, D. F., A. F. Seidl and C. J. A. Ferreira. 2000. Participatory research methods

in environmental science: local and scientific knowledge of a limnological phenomenon

in the Pantanal Wetland of Brazil. Advances in Applied Ecology. 37:684-696

Chiaudani, G., G. Premazzi and G. Rossi. 1986. Problemi e metodi nei piani di

risanamento di tutela e gestione delle risorse dei grandi bacini lacustri. Il caso del lago

di Como. Ingegneria Ambientale 15(9):503:510 [Italian]

Couzin, J. 2007. Opening doors to native knowledge. Science 315 (5818):1518-1519

Cuypers, Y., B. Vincon-Leite, A. Groleau, B. Tassin and J-F. Humbert. 2011. Impact of

internal waves on the spatial distribution of Planktothrix rubescens (cyanobacteria) in an

alpine lake. The ISME Journal (5):580-589

Davis, A. and J. R.Wagner. 2003. Who knows? On the importance of identifying

‘experts’ when researching local ecological knowledge. Human Ecology 31(3)

Furnans, J., J. Imberger, and B. R. Hodges. 2008. Including drag and inertia in drifter

modelling. Environmental Modelling and Software 23: 714-728.

Gadgil, M., P. Olsson, F. Berkes, and C. Folke. 2003. Exploring the role of local

ecological knowledge in ecosystem management: three case studies. Pages 189-209 in

Berkes, F. J. Colding, and C. Folke. (Eds.). 2003. Navigating social-ecological systems:

building resilience for complexity and change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.


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Hodges, B. R., J. Imberger, A. Saggio, and K. B. Winters. 2000. Modeling basin-scale

internal waves in a stratified lake. Limnology and Oceanography 45:1603–1620.

Huntington, H. P. 2000. Using traditional ecological knowledge in science: Methods

and applications. Ecological Applications 10(5):1270-1274 [online]

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2641282

Imberger, J., and J. C. Patterson. 1990. Physical limnology. Advances in applied

mechanics. 27:303-473

Inglis, J. T. (Ed.) 1993. Traditional ecological knowledge: concepts and cases.

International program on traditional ecological knowledge. Canadian museum of

Nature.

Johannes, R. E., Freeman, M. M. R. and R. J. Hamilton. 2000. Ignore fishers'

knowledge and miss the boat. Fish and Fisheries. 1(3):257-271

Laborde, S., Antenucci, J. P., Copetti, D. and J. Imberger. 2010. Inflow intrusions at


1312

Ostrovsky, I., Yacobi, Y. Z., Walline, P. and I. Kalikhman. 1996. Seiche-induced

mixing: Its impact on lake productivity. Limnology and Oceanography 41(2):323-332

Shimizu T, Takagi T, Korte, H., Hiraishi T, Yamamoto K. 2005. Application of NaLA,

a fishing net configuration and loading analysis system, to drift gill nets. Fisheries

Research 76:67–80

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of the American Meteorological Society 63:1309-1313


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Chapter 6. The making and meaning of environmental knowledge

137

Chapter 6 The making and meaning of environmental

knowledge: A fisherman, a limnologist, and an Italian lake

Sarah Laborde

The point of the probe is always in the heart of the

explorer: What is my answer to the question of the nature

of knowing? I surrender to the belief that my knowing is a

small part of a wider integrated knowing that knits the

entire biosphere

Gregory Bateson

6.1 Abstract

Environmental knowledge is a theme of concern to current anthropological enquiry,

especially as it interweaves analyses of local and scientific understandings of, and

relationships with, biophysical environments. In this article, a dual ethnographic

engagement with fishers and limnologists enables examination of the production and

enacting of environmental knowledge via water currents in Lake Como, Italy, in the

contexts of lake-based fishing and academic technoscience. Two main points emerge

that have theoretical and methodological implications. First, despite being seemingly

located at different edges of the environmental knowledge spectrum, the

epistemological nature of the fishermen and limnologists’ knowledges does not differ:

local and scientific ways of knowing the Lake emerged from the same form of

engagement via fields of practice conceptualised as taskscapes (after Ingold). Second,

the contrasting natures of these taskscapes facilitate an analysis showing how

knowledge develops ‘in place’. Foucault’s discussion of heterotopias is drawn on to

disentangle the relationship that environmental scientists have with the environment

they work on, through the environment they work in.


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6.2 Introduction

On a cool autumn evening, in a small fishing boat on a large lake, I was staring at a

yellow balloon a few hundred of meters away in the water while trying to help hold the

boat reasonably still near a rocky outcrop on the shore. The engine was off. Alessandro,

the fisherman with me asked: ‘So, what do you see?’ Unsure, I asked whether the

balloon was going down [south]. ‘No, it’s going up, and it’s quite fast’, he replied. I

then thought how much easier it would be to look at the balloon from the sky, a

perspective I was so familiar with after engaging with map-like representations of that

lake for years.

The Lake was the Lario, also known as Lake Como17, which extends three long arms

between the alpine foothills of Lombardy, in northern Italy (Fig. 31). Alessandro is a

professional fisher operating on the Lake; that evening he was evaluating the Lake

current at about 5 m depth, before setting his nets. I had studied the water currents in

that lake as part of a research project in physical limnology18: the need to meet with the

people for whom my study site was a place of daily life and work had drawn me back,

this time as a postgraduate student in anthropology, with the aim of carrying out

ethnographic field work with the professional fishermen of the Lake19.

The intent of this article is to reflect analytically on my dual engagement with ways of

knowing the Lake’s physics and on the notion of environmental knowledge. I present

ethnographic data in the form of two narratives of knowledge in the making, in the

contexts of lake fishing and academic environmental science. The interrelated questions

I address through a comparative analysis are: 1) what does it mean to know an

17 I refer here to the Lake as Lake Como rather than its original name ‘Lario’ because it is how the Lake is now known by most people. I acknowledge a local controversy about the Lake being shared between two provinces (Como and Lecco) but bearing the name of one of them only when being called ‘Lake Como’

18 Physical limnology (from the greek limne: lake) is the study of physical processes (water motions) in inland waters. I also refer to environmental fluid dynamics, which is the more general study of the movements of fluids in the environment

19 I started as a PhD candidate in Environmental Engineering, and became jointly enrolled in Environmental Engineering and Anthropology mid-way through my doctorate


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environment, and 2) how does scientific knowledge both resemble and differ from local

practical knowledge when the focus is on precisely the same environment?

Since I am embedded in the two narratives, as an emerging anthropologist and

environmental scientist, I feel the need to clarify my own epistemological position. A

positivist, if not realist scientific framework came naturally to me through scientific

education and postgraduate research as an environmental scientist in France and

Australia. The field of mechanics, described by Polanyi as a ‘show-case of objectivity’

(1969: 106), is based on Newtonian mechanics, and much research in environmental

fluid dynamics in the last two centuries has relied on the same set of equations (derived

by Navier in 1822). I had quite unconsciously accepted these theories as valid and

approximately true descriptions of some aspects of the world, which in hindsight was

heuristically useful, I believe, as it allowed me to focus on the description and

prediction of natural phenomena without having to question understandings that had

resisted ‘enough’ scrutiny (Latour 2005).

As I became increasingly reflexive overtime about the practice of science and the

limitations of individual disciplines, I also became increasingly interested in

anthropology. A particular attraction was the idea that all productions of knowledge –

including science – are embedded in, and shaped by, socio-cultural contexts (Latour

2005; Barth 2002); a premise on which this article is based. In many ways, my current

position resonates with Escobar’s view that anthropologists have an important role in

‘theorising the ways [nature] is culturally constructed and socially produced, while

acknowledging the biophysical basis of its constitution’ (1999: 2), an emphasis I

develop further below.

Before introducing the study site and the narratives, the concept of environmental

knowledge needs to be clarified. Throughout the argument, I juggle with two common

definitions of environment, calling ‘definition 1’ the most recent use of the term, central

to the practice of environmental science and engineering, which refers to a natural world

that is separate from humans but subject to their actions and interventions. ‘Definition

2’, in contrast, refers to a unique environment in relation to a particular organism. This

dual definition allows, for instance, a scientist to study an Italian lake or another

environment (definition 1) from his or her academic work environment (definition 2)


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that is at a distance from the first (through remote sensing, numerical data analysis etc.),

thereby producing environmental knowledge about places he or she has no direct

relationship with. As for the notion of knowledge, like Barth (2002) I am concerned here

with useful descriptions of, or action in, the world: knowledge that works in the context

of its production and usage. This includes theoretical as well as practical and other ways

of knowing.

Starting from the premise that knowledge is contextual and relational (Polanyi 1969;

Turnbull 2003), my analysis is grounded in the theoretical writings of Tim Ingold

(2000; 2011). I examine the emergence and enacting of knowledge in the context of the

fisher and the scientist’s engagements in fields of practice embedded in their respective

biophysical and social environments, an emphasis that Ingold refers to as a ‘taskscape’

(2000: 194-200). This practice perspective on knowledge has theoretical roots in

phenomenology, and it has been developed by scholars in a wide range of fields from

anthropology and sociology (Bateson 1972; Bourdieu 1972) to philosophy (Varela et al.

1991; Clark 1997), psychology (Lave 1988; Bargh 1999), and neuroscience (Damasio

1994) - with the common underlying aim to dissolve the Cartesian divides between

mind, body, and environment, in theories of knowledge. This approach also provides

theoretical ground for comparative analyses of knowledges in the making that include

technoscience, as it places all traditions of knowledge on an equal footing (Ingold and

Kurttila 2000; Turnbull 2003).

6.3 The Lake

6.3.1 A waterscape

For the poet Shelley, Lake Como resembles ‘a mighty river winding among the

mountains and forests’ (1882: 25). It is a long, narrow and deep lake surrounded by

mountains that channel regular winds and, except in times of exceptional fog, one can

see the opposite shore from anywhere by the Lake. The three arms of the Lake extend

respectively north (Alto Lago), southeast (ramo di Lecco) and southwest (ramo di

Como), for a total of 170 km of winding shoreline (Fig. 31). The lakeshore offers a

combination of open views over the Lake and small places: coves and points, cliffs and


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flats, small valleys and villages. The variation of light and colour, the shadows of the

mountains and the patterns made by the breeze onto the Lake create an ever-changing

landscape.

The lakeshore cities and villages are home to over 180 000 people, three quarters of

which are concentrated in the urban centres of Como and Lecco in the south. In

contrast, most villages count a few hundred inhabitants; they were built on the steep

mountainsides, down to the Lake where a few local boats are berthed in small, protected

docks; and up toward the pasture areas that have returned to forest since small-scale

farming became marginal in the local economy.

The professional fishers, today three or four per village at most, spend long and

demanding hours working on the Lake: they set their nets at sunset and retrieve them

later during the night, most often alone on their boat. They fish principally for whitefish

and shad in the middle of the Lake, with drifting gillnets called oltane (whitefish) and

pendenti (shad). They also catch sedentary fish, mainly perch that are caught with nets

called perseghere.

In 2010, 69 people were holders of professional licenses permitting them to fish in Lake

Como20. My main ethnographic concern was with regular professional fishers operating

daily and all year-round on the Lake, a group of about 30 men between 19 and 78 years

old spread around the Lake. Other license holders operated on small neighbour lakes or

they were retired, seasonal, or family members, specifically women as wives or mothers

who held a license to help with the activity on the land, for instance to clean, prepare,

and sell the freshly caught fish.

6.3.2 A body of water

From the perspective of physical limnology, the Lake is a water body that constantly

exchanges water, heat and momentum with the atmosphere above, resulting in water

movements from the surface down to its depths. The shape of the lakebed and the rivers

20 Data from the Departments of Fisheries of the Como and Lecco Provinces


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flowing in and out of the Lake also influence these movements. Lake Como’s

hydrodynamics (water motions) came under detailed study through a locally managed

project that involved the installation of three in-lake monitoring stations (one near the

end of each arm) with meteorological instruments to record atmospheric data, and

downward chains of sensors to measure water temperature from the surface down to the

depths.

I used these data for doctoral research when based in Perth, Australia to study the

Lake’s hydrodynamics in different weather and seasonal conditions. In particular, in the

warmer months of the year, the Lake stratifies in layers of water with different

temperatures and thus densities. At the interface between these layers, waves can

propagate (like at the interface of water and air) and induce underwater currents that

interplay with other physical processes such as lake inflows. I was working under the

supervision of two academics expert in physical limnology, and also in close contact

with other students focusing on similar topics, albeit at different sites.

Figure 31: Map of Lake Como. Left: regional context (northern Italy and the Alps21); right: outline of the

Lake, the name of the localities correspond to the place where I interviewed one or more local fishers

(apart from Como)

21 photo: NASA


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6.4 Cross-current narratives: fishing and limnology in practice

6.4.1 A note about context and methods

I begin with an overview of how data for this article were collected, contextualised and

angled. The fishing trip described below took place on 27 and 28 of October 2010. It

was one of several trips that I took part in during a three-month period of fieldwork with

the Lake’s fishermen, where I carried out participant observation, ethnographic

interviews and mapping, via a focus on the fishers’ knowledge and interactions with

their physical lake environment. The narrative draws on data recorded on the boat via

notes, photographs and drawings.

The limnologist’s work narrative was reconstructed from my own notebooks, emails

and memories relating to the two years I spent as a PhD student in physical limnology

studying water motions in Lake Como22. I was part of an academic research group

focused on environmental fluid dynamics, giving me the opportunity to interact daily

with other researchers in that field. The account constitutes a description of tasks I

carried out during this period and it is representative of a level of skill corresponding to

late 2008 onwards.

I am embedded in both narratives, as an anthropologist and as a limnologist: the data on

which the stories draw were thus collected at different times, as detailed above.

However the stories could have happened in parallel, one at the Lake, the other at an

Australian university office: there were many nights in 2008-2009 during which my

numerical simulations of the Lake’s hydrodynamics and Alessandro’s nets ran in

parallel with the Lake’s flows.

6.4.2 Fishing the Lake

Alessandro is the son and grandson of fishers. He is the only professional fisher left in

the small village where he lives with his family in the central area of the Lake. The

small harbor (molo) where he keeps his two fishing boats, the family-owned restaurant

22 During November 2007 to December 2009


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that he helps his wife run and the small self-managed fish-processing facility where he

works with a colleague transforming fish caught for retail, are all within walking

distance from his home.

That day, in the late afternoon at the small harbor, Alessandro prepares his nets and his

boat. It is a sunny autumn day with ‘a bit of Vento [strong northerly wind] in the air’, as

he puts it. He has an idea about which nets to set and where, based on his experience

combined with the seasonal conditions, the weather expected for the night, the fishing

regulations, the last few days’ catches and the types of fish needed to supply the shop

and the restaurant. Besides a few whitefish and perch, he needs to catch shad to start

preparing the missultin, a local dried-fish specialty.

While the whitefish are caught relatively deep these days (about 30 m), the shad are

found near the surface during the night. For the sedentary fish (perch), his father and

grandfather had shown him productive fishing spots that he still uses and alternates with

other locations he has found himself, to give the fish schools time to recover between

catches. Water places have names on the Lake, mainly in dialect, which are used for

practical conversations about a fishing trip: they refer to what is, or was, on the shore, or

to stories that happened at these places (for example ‘the little cross’ offshore from a

small chapel, ‘the fatigued willow tree’, ‘the point of David’23).

On this particular morning Alessandro increased the length of string that set the depth of

the oltane because he has found most whitefish caught in the lower part of the nets

yesterday morning. He is now running each series of nets through his fingers to

disentangle any major knot and check the state of the nets. As he goes along he coils the

nets onto aluminium rods, to be later placed on the boat so he has them to hand for

when the setting is to begin. When everything is prepared and the boat loaded,

Alessandro manoeuvres out of the harbor. It is quite late, as he likes to get on the Lake

after the other fishers to see where the other nets have been set and to adapt his work

consequently. Two drift nets carried by different currents (at different depths, like

pendenti and oltane) can tangle and get damaged. In such case, the tacit rule among

fishers suggests that the responsibility lies with the owner of the pendenti; these are the

23 These names are from a fisherman from the Lecco arm


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nets that get most damaged, and they also typically (but not always) travel faster than

the oltane as they are set at shallower depths.

After setting perseghere on the bottom and oltane anchored to the rocky shore, he starts

sailing southward to set the drifting pendenti, which are 6.5 m high and will stretch

roughly between 2 and 10 m depth (Fig. 32). The current cannot be inferred by looking

at the Lake surface. Alessandro’s experience suggests that during most nights on his

side of the Lake this current goes north; he had also given a quick, reflex look at the

long seaweed that grows near the harbor as we left: they were bending toward the north.

He is thus anticipating that his nets will drift north through the night: by setting them a

couple of kilometres south from his home and harbor, it is easier for him to control their

movements and to retrieve them later.

About two kilometres away from San Giovanni, Alessandro sets a drifter improvised

with an old jacket tied to a weight and a balloon to confirm the direction of the current

and get an idea of its velocity (this is the scene that opened this article). It is not

something he does every time, but that day the current seems quite strong. The balloon

is going north rather fast, so Alessandro takes the boat a bit further south and starts by

putting a buoy in the water with the white flashing light that will mark one net

extremity. He then lets the nets run through his hand and into the water as he sails the

boat slowly, accounting for the effect of the breeze and superficial current so that the net

ends up on an imaginary line across the basin (east–west) along hundreds of meters (Fig.

32:3). All fishers initially set their drift nets, attached to lights of different colours and

flashing frequencies, approximately perpendicular to the shores, parallel to each other

and across from the main north–south currents. There is another fisher’s set of nets

further south that, Alessandro explains, is of little concern because it is behind a

peninsula that tends to block the current. There is also another fishing boat north of us. I

can only see a light and hear an engine, but Alessandro knows which fisher it is and

what kind of nets he is setting: they are oltane, attached to a blue flashing light, which

might drift southward.

Because the current is strong near the surface, as also revealed by the resistance of the

floats to the net’s traction, Alessandro removes one float near the eastern extremity of

his series of nets for that part to hang in deeper waters, where the current is slower or


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even contrary to the superficial current (Fig. 32:2). He explains that this is to slow down

the northern progression of the net and to make it rotate, so it can stay longer in the

water without risking an entanglement with nets coming from the north. Alessandro did

not learn this and other techniques he uses to manage the nets in case of strong current

from his forebears who were more reticent to work in strong currents, mainly because of

the much greater relative cost of nets24. He developed them by experimenting and

learning from nights like this one. As he finishes setting the nets, he suggests we meet

around midnight to retrieve them.

From the lakeshore, Alessandro watches the movements of the nets for a while. When

he is reassured that nothing abnormal is happening, he goes to have dinner with his

family. He keeps an eye on the nets through the night, checking the position of the lights

from his house with binoculars, from the harbor, or from the road above if they are

behind a bend of the shoreline. He checks about ten times per night between short

periods of rest; as he had told me on another occasion: ‘It’s better for me to sleep two

hours in the afternoon than to sleep at night. … When I have the drift nets in the Lake, I

go to sleep but I’m not relaxed … I just can’t throw them in and forget about them.’

At 11:30 pm I am out by the harbor. The moon is big and the air is cold. The lights from

the villages and the villas on the lakeshore are reflected in the Lake’s surface. I evaluate

the velocity of the blue flashing light, as I have seen Alessandro and other fishermen do,

by looking at a reference item on the shore aligned with the flashing light (the steeple of

a church, a villa), and then looking again an instant later. The blue nets seem to be

coming south faster and faster. As I become anxious about a possible entanglement,

Alessandro arrives wearing gumboots and a waterproof suit, and I join him on the boat.

The position of the two lights and the visible floats suggests that his series of nets has

rotated clockwise. The blue light is very close now and it appears that the rotation that

he crafted a few hours earlier has prevented an encounter between the two nets (Fig.

32:4).

24 Nets used to be hand-made up until a couple of generations ago. For a diachronic ethnography of fishing in the Lake, including on this topic, see Pirovano (1996, 2003)


147

Hoping for a good catch, he gets the white light back on board and starts pulling the net

out at a steady pace with his bare hands to remove the fish from the meshing. The live

shad emit a short gurgling noise as he pulls them out of the net with dexterity; they are

silver with green and purple shades as the scales on their bellies refract the light.

Alessandro’s fishing practice will go on day after day, varying as he attunes it to, among

other things, the changing flows of air and water over and under the Lake surface.

Figure 32: 1. Schematic of nets (pendenti: A and oltane: B) in different currents; 2. Drawing from

notebook (27 Oct 2010) of a view across the nets (approximate east–west cut) that explains the strategy of

removing one float to obtain net rotation; 3. Alessandro setting the nets (picture taken on 27 Oct 2010); 4.

Schematic of the net rotation crafted using the differential currents.


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6.4.3 Modelling the Lake

I am a PhD student in a university research centre focusing on the hydrodynamics of

standing water bodies such as lakes. I sit in an office behind a desktop computer, with a

map of Lake Como on the wall above my screen. To my left is a window with a view

opening on a garden of the university, on my right a student from Venezuela is studying

the coastal ocean of Western Australia, at my back another student from China is

studying a hurricane in the Caribbean Sea. I conduct computer-mediated analyses of

meteorological and lake temperature measurements. I also combine these data with a

three-dimensional hydrodynamic model.

That day, I am about to run another model simulation of the Lake’s hydrodynamics. My

numerical lake is made of thousands of grid cells containing ‘digital water’ whose

properties are calculated by the computer as the simulations run. The grid is based on a

topographic map of Lake Como’s bed (bathymetry, Fig. 33:2), and the number and size

of the cells is a compromise between precision and computational speed. I have set the

horizontal grid size (200 m) and the time period on which the model will run (three

weeks, with a calculation for every minute of [virtual] time, done by the model in a

couple of [actual] seconds) based on the data and results from previous simulations.

On this particular morning I increased the vertical resolution of my grid to try to get the

model to pick up with more precision a feature that looked interesting in the data:

pronounced movement in the temperature structure of the Lake (Fig. 33:1) after a strong

northerly wind. I am now checking the integrity of each of the data series I will use in

the simulation (wind speed and direction, solar radiations, air humidity and temperature,

inflows and outflow). I do so by writing (coding) short scripts with the software matlab

and running the data files through these to check for, and address, gaps and

inconsistencies, and I write the clean data into new files in a standard format that will be

read by the model. Some of the scripts I use were adapted from more senior software

users: by reading through their codes, running them and trying to understand the flow of

ideas and the logic behind them, I have learnt to write my own, and I now would not

want to be handling and processing large matrices of numbers in any other way.

Practically, these tasks correspond to focused sequences of, for example, the following

actions: coding (typing code lines) – running the script: it crashes – finding the error –


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correcting the script – running – plotting – thinking of another way to process or plot the

data – changing the script accordingly – running – plotting etc. This goes on until I am

satisfied that I have seen enough of the data, that they makes sense and are in the right

format. I then place the various data files in the folders for the model to find and

process. I always use the same folder structure to keep things organised; the main layout

came from the more senior student who first showed me how to set up the model, and I

have refined my own organization since. The model I am going to use (called

ELCOM25) has been developed by several generations of researchers in environmental

fluid dynamics, mostly in the research centre where I am now studying. Founded on

accepted fluid dynamics theory, the code is being continuously developed and refined,

which has made it particularly adapted to standing bodies of water like lakes.

When everything is sorted for the numerical simulation, I log on remotely to the

modelling Linux computer, typing my password and the usual commands without

thinking about it – I have been doing it for years now. Before starting, I check whether

there are other people’s simulations running on that machine: too many at once can lead

to a slow run or even to a simulation crashing. The computation should take about eight

hours and I aim to get it running overnight. I have defined a series of curtains through

the Lake, roughly perpendicular to the shores (east–west): the model will output values

of water temperature, velocity and direction in the cells of these curtains at every time

step.

I type in the commands to start the simulation. Lines of a log appear every second or so

on my monitor (Fig. 33:3), proof that my simulation is running; I watch these run down

my screen for a while and when I am reassured that nothing abnormal is happening, I go

home. I then have another look, connecting remotely from my home computer, before

going to sleep hoping that the simulation does not crash during the night.

At about 9 am the next morning I am back in the office. Hoping for good results, I copy

the output files onto my computer, open matlab and I start looking at (plotting) the

results: what matches the field data and what does not, what is potentially interesting,

what looks like an artefact of the model. I try a few different plots to better highlight the

25 Estuary Lake and Coastal Ocean Model


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features that I feel are meaningful, then show them to a more senior researcher who

directs my attention to elements in the results that catch his attention, and suggests ways

I can improve the fit of the model. My practice will go on until my graphs and tables

can be turned and written into a ‘story’ about the Lake’s hydrodynamics (Laborde et al.

2010).

Figure 33. Example of data plot of temperature structure at one location in the Lake, through depth and

time; 2. the Lake’s bathymetry; 3. Extract of model log.


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6.5 Comparative Analysis

6.5.1 Attention, embodiment and the flows of practice

The narratives might seem unnecessarily detailed, however, a focus on the small day-to-

day actions that make up the practices of the two protagonists serves to illustrate the

way knowledge of the Lake is developed and expressed in the two different contexts. It

is clear that Alessandro’s knowledge of the Lake environment is predominantly

instantiated through action: the way he selected and organised his gear on the boat, then

set his nets accounting for the weather, the currents and the movements of nearby

fishers were embedded in his skilled fishing practice (see also Pálsson 1994; Lauer and

Aswani 2009). About 15 thousand kilometres away, on an entirely different continent, I

was focused on my computer screen coding matlab scripts to ‘navigate’ the data, guided

by my previous experience with similar data series and familiarity with my digital

workspace and software toolboxes. These tasks were similar to the preparation of the

fishing gear and the sailing of fishing routes: in both cases, personal practice afforded

the conditions of emergence of knowledge by moving through, and seeing information

in, the Lake and the data; and the way it was enacted by adjusting accordingly, and

intuitively, the course of the boat in one location, and that of the computer code in

another.

Bourdieu (1972) conceptualised the habitus as a personal set of embodied dispositions

that tacitly (and, in the context of skilled practice, helpfully) infuse practice by

underlining and informing patterns of acting, thinking and feeling. It is this ‘sense of the

game’ (Bourdieu 2001: 101 and 1997: 23) that allows the fisher and limnologist to act

in their respective environments (in accordance with definition 2) without the need to

consciously aggregate their perceptions, evaluate their meaning and reason through

appropriate responses. This is not to say that all knowledge embodied in the habitus is

enacted unconsciously, as some critics of Bourdieu have emphasised (e.g. Farnell

2000). Thoughts, intentions and ideas are embedded in practical engagement, even

when habit and skill allow conscious attention to reach out in the taskscape instead of

being reflectively focused on mind activity (Farnell 2000: 408; Ingold 2011: 50). This

confers an adaptive quality to skilled practice that is evidenced in the narratives.

Consider the way Alessandro responded to the presence of another net that he

anticipated would drift toward his, and the process of trial-and-error guided by hunches


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that characterised my computer coding practice. Creative improvisation arose out of

skilled practice, shaped by countless episodes of engagement with the Lake’s currents

and the numerical datasets, and combined with, in each case, an embedded commitment

and intentionality. This line of thought, developed in the collection of essays edited by

Hallam and Ingold (2007) also elucidates how tradition and creativity are, far from

mutually exclusive, two faces of the same token (see also Ingold and Kurttila 2001;

Knudsen 2008).

One may self-consciously reflect on experience and plan future action while disengaged

from it, which might happen for instance upon exposure to new phenomena, ideas, or

the need to argue over knowledge claims26 such as through the writing of an academic

article. These ideas, however, do not emerge from a vacuum but from a history of

practice and, after short instants of self-conscious, detached reflection, they will be

brought to life again, in practice. For instance, the arrival of new fishing gear like echo

sounders might at first lead the fisher to reflecting on its mode of operation and

planning how, when and where to use it, but soon enough it will become ‘just as much a

‘natural sign’, directly sensed, as birds in the air or natural landmarks’ (Pálsson 1994:

918). The same can be said for concepts of physical limnology such as thermocline:

upon first encounters, a science student might spend time reasoning them through

conceptually, but soon they will just be a familiar entity, look a certain way on graphs

and tell them something about the data (see also Roth et al. 2002).

Key to skill development is other people in the taskscape. The majority of fishermen

said they were deeply influenced by the older fishers, and one of them used the term

figli d’arte, which literally translates as children of the art to describe the learning

relationship across generations. It highlights the importance of growing up in place, by

the Lake and, for most (but not all) currently practicing fishermen, in a fishers’

household. Art is a fitting term for the Lake’s fishing activities, emerging

etymologically from skill and craft (Ingold 2001: 17). Listening to stories and seeing the

places and techniques of fishing, while helping more experienced fishers by rowing or

holding nets, leads to the tuning of young fishers’ awareness to their fishing taskscape.

26 Mercier and Sperber (2011) even propose that conscious reasoning is a ‘social competence’ that developed for the purpose of argumentation.


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This process that Ingold calls an education of attention27, is central to his relational

theory of environmental knowledge acquisition (2000: 132-151). Environmental

scientific knowledge is also acquired via an education of the novice’s attention through

textbooks, problem solving exercises and articles, and by following the conceptual and

experimental path of more senior practitioners by integrating and reworking aspects of

these into his or her own practice, as illustrated in the narrative. As Bourdieu observed:

‘[scientific] research is a customary practice that is learnt through example’ (2001:49).

The same can be said, of course, about fishing.

Following Helmreich, ‘water28 is both good to think with and here to live with’ (2011:

138), and a lake is a good metaphor to think about the nature of environmental

knowledge: it seems rather stable and still, its content changing at a small rate by the

input and output of new and old water from known streams; and it appears contained in

the terrain and distinct from the sky above it and the earth below it. In reality, the water

in a lake moves along complex flow lines that respond to the slightest change in the

fluxes (of heat, momentum and water) to and from the atmosphere and the surrounding

terrain. The Lake surface is no fixed boundary; it is always changing and constantly

interacting with its surroundings.

While a limnologist and a fisher may seem to be at different edges of the environmental

knowledge spectrum, the epistemological nature of their knowledges does not differ.

Typing one’s password is like turning the key to start the boat, coding a script like

negotiating a fishing route: all knowledge merges in the flow29 of practice. Their

taskscapes are, however, dramatically different. I now turn to examining how.

27 First developed by James Gibson (Ingold 2000: 22).

28 ‘seawater’ in Helmreich’s article

29 The ‘flow’ metaphor has been used elsewhere in relation to skilled practice, for instance in psychology (Csikszentmihalyi 1997)


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6.5.2 Heterotopias of environmental science

If a fisher and a limnologist engage with the same lake on an everyday basis, they will

engage with different environments, in the sense of definition 2: the fisher will work

with fishing gear, the lake and the sky, whereas the scientist will work with numbers,

computer models and graphs. My experience of physical limnology was almost entirely

mediated by a computer, with the combination keyboard–screen as a form of ‘blind’s

man’s cane’ in the sense of Bateson’s allegory (1972: 465). I am therefore encouraged

to describe the activities carried out in such a research environment as a digital

taskscape, able to stretch through network technologies. I choose to bring the focus here

onto models, and more particularly numerical models that are an increasingly central

feature of much of the work carried out today in the environmental sciences30. Such

models come in various forms (Wainwright and Mulligan 2004: 13-15); those

combining processes already described mathematically to simulate the dynamics of an

environment (such as ELCOM) provide particular foci for my argument.

I first take issue with the common idea that models are abstract representations of

natural systems, a definition that reverts to the questionable ‘mentalist’ divide between

scientific and non-scientific traditions of knowledge. A conceptual or abstract

representation lies altogether in the world of ideas; it suggests that the scientist carries

the lake as a complex object in his or her mind and it does not do justice to the dynamic

and concrete nature of models, or to their epistemic value as a learning tool. It will be

obvious from the narrative that I did not carry in my mind the whole of ELCOM, rather

I learnt from my engagement with it. Along with Knuutila (2005), it think it can thus be

argued that it is not only appropriate, but also intellectually productive, to regard models

as concrete epistemic artefacts with which scientists develop a learning relationship, just

as fishers develop a learning relationship with a lake. A model like ELCOM has

evolved from the work of many scientists and developers, and it continues to grow and

change as different people use and adjust the code to their tasks. Drawing on an original

expression by Stewart Brand, the idea of a model is crystalline while its day-to-day

reality is fluid (Ingold 2011: 314).

30 Academic journals dedicated to environmental models include Environmental modeling and software (Elsevier), Ecological Modeling (Elsevier), Environmental Modeling and assessment (Springer)


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During my limnology studies, ‘my’ Lake Como was as a numerical lake. Using the

model and data available to me, I built and developed a relationship with it like a child

builds a playhouse and then loves to ‘live’ in it. In this sense, the numerical data and

model of the Lake became a form of what Foucault called a ‘heterotopia’, an ‘other

space’ (Foucault 2004). Heterotopias differ from unreal utopias in that they are

‘absolutely real’ (the computer, its screen and keyboard, the ELCOM code) and

‘absolutely unreal’ (the digital lake, the water filling its thousands of rectangular

prisms), as well as ‘absolutely different from all the places that they reflect and speak

about’ (the Lake) (2004: 15).

There are two relevant points to be made about the heterotopic spaces of environmental

science, and particularly models. Firstly, they articulate imperceptible transitions

between virtual and real places and times (Foucault 2004: 17), which can support

reflection and insight, just like a museum, a library or a cinema room31 can do.

Numerical models facilitate contextual shifts between the data to be processed here and

now, and scientific formal knowledge embedded in the code and derived from other

places and times. Second, they are not freely accessible (2004:17). One needs a

background, a password to download the code and/or connect to the computers, and

substantial time to become familiar with a numerical model. Further, the accumulation

of formalised knowledge in models leads to their growth at a rate afforded by increasing

computational power and knowledge formalization, which makes them increasingly

complex and more and more opaque to outsiders, also reflecting a ‘will to enclose’

(time, space, knowledge) that characterises Foucault’s heterotopias (2004:17).

Such models are thus part of protected taskscapes where the scientist can run scenarii

about an environment (definition 1) that is not his or her environment (definition 2). On

a day-to-day basis, these heterotopic taskscapes support the practical and concrete

engagements of many environmental scientists who, as a result, are deeply connected to

these environments that they live and work in (in the sense of definition 2), like local

inhabitants are connected to their own (Bourdieu 1997:170). However, the scientists

31 These examples were cited by Foucault (2004:17)


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remain physically and emotionally distant from the environment they work on (this time

in the sense of definition 1).

6.6 Conclusion

Let us return, once more, to where this article started: the boat by the rocky outcrop on

the lakeshore, the drifting balloon, Alessandro and myself. It should now be clearer why

at this instant I felt like a fish out of water: the lake I was looking at had very little to do

with the numerical lake I had engaged with for years. I knew ‘my’ lake in a way that

was visual and vertical from looking down on maps and graphs, which contrasted with

the multisensory and horizontal view that inhabitants have of the environment they

navigate (Ingold 2011: 233-236).

Local inhabitants of an environment and the scientists who study that environment do

not have fundamentally different ways of knowing the same place. Their cognitive

engagement with their respective taskscapes is of the same epistemological nature, only

these taskscapes differ drastically. In one case the knowledge-generative practice is

embedded in the place-based environment (the Lake), in the other it is embedded in a

largely digital heterotopia that combines some disembodied data from the environment

in focus with formalised, generic knowledge about a type of environment

(environmental fluids and lakes). Through their situated practices, each community

(fishermen and limnologists) becomes familiar with their respective taskscape and, as

Orlove put it, their own ‘imagined countrysides32... that make the area visible and

comprehensible to them’ (1991: 31-32).

This emphasis is not to suggest that scientific environmental knowledge is less, or more,

legitimate than local knowledge. The focus of fundamental natural science on

formalising and displacing knowledge supports the ongoing critical conversations that

confer its accuracy and power (Latour 2005). When this formal knowledge is claimed to

describe a place however, and even more so when these claims are being used to

32 After Anderson's ‘imagined communities’ (Orlove 1991)


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transform that place (for instance through environmental policy) then the knowledge of

local inhabitants should be central to the knowledge-making conversation. In the same

way as critical exchanges among scientists from the same field yet different places

enhances theoretical environmental knowledge, engagement across knowledge groups

about the same place stimulates the shifts in context, articulation and critical evaluation

of arguments that lead to reflexive insight and to a more accurate knowledge of that

place or environment. As illustrated via studies in political ecology showing that many

environmental contests are sustained by opposing knowledge groups failing to

understand each other as they talk about different places (different natures) such an

emphasis is also relevant to politics of the environment (Orlove 1991; Escobar 1999;

Williams 2000; Corrigan 2010).

A connection between and among knowledge groups should and can be found via a

focus on the stories of knowledge in the making, instead of their outcomes.

Environments are made of places, and places are the ‘knots of stories’ (Ingold 2011:

234), which is what confers their meaning and their value (Toussaint 2008). The virtual

places produced by environmental technoscience seem devoid of meaning because the

stories that surround and construct them are covered up and kept in the places where

environmental science is crafted. I have shown that these places, referred to as

heterotopias, are embedded with meaning: stories about moments of excited insight or

of bored routine, data navigation, computer issues, animated meetings – of the practice

of environmental science. These stories are similar to those of the day-to-day life of

‘local knowers’ of an environment, and there is substantial epistemological room to

connect on a human level around these stories of knowledge-in-the-making.

I am cautious when Ingold suggests that a ‘sense of astonishment … is so conspicuous

by its absence in contemporary scientific work’ (2011: 129). It is admittedly absent

from its written products, but the practice of science is full of astonishment.

Environmental fluid dynamics was a particular source of amazement as it provided a

new connection to the ‘fluid world’ through an inspiring way to study lakes, oceans, the

sky and clouds, not as separate entities but as fluid media that stratify, mix and flow, a

way of looking at the world that resonates with Ingold’s latest writings (2010; 2011).

On the other hand, scientists of all persuasions who study environments must articulate

their own histories of practices, habits and motivations, in order to engage with other


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groups who live in the environments they study. Ingold’s call is apposite here: ‘if

science is to be a coherent knowledge practice, it must be rebuilt on the foundation of

openness rather than closure, engagement rather than detachment. ... Knowing must be

reconnected with being, epistemology with ontology, thought with life’ (2011: 129).

6.7 Acknowledgements:

The research for this article was supported by a postgraduate scholarship from the

Australian Government and a postgraduate award from UWA. The School of Social and

Cultural Studies (SSCS) of UWA partly funded the three-month fieldwork in Italy,

while the limnology studies were conducted at, and supported by, CWR. I thank SSCS

and CWR for providing the conditions supporting the writing of this paper. In Italy, I

wish to thank Massimo Pirovano and the fishers of the Lario, especially Alessandro Sala

and his family, for their availability and helpfulness. Finally, I thank Nick Harney who

provided helpful feedback on a previous version of this paper, and Sandy Toussaint for

her help throughout conceptualization, design and writing of this research.

6.8 References

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Bateson, G. 1972 Steps to an ecology of mind: collected essays in anthropology,

psychiatry, evolution, and epistemology. Chandler: San Francisco

Bourdieu, P. 1972 Esquisse d’une theorie de la pratique. Droz: Geneve

Bourdieu, P. 1997 Meditations Pascaliennes. Seuil: Paris

Bourdieu, P. 2001 Science de la science et réflexivité. cours du Collège de France -

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Cambridge, Mass.

Corrigan, B. 2010. Different stories about the same place: Institutionalised authority and

individual expertise within topographies of difference. World Anthropologies Network

(WAN) e-journal 5:170-219

Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1997 Finding flow: The psychology of engagement with everyday

life. Basic books: New York

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embodied social action. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 6(3):397-

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scale fisheries on the eastern Black Sea coast of Turkey. Human Ecology 36:29–41

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argumentative theory. Behavioral and brain sciences 34:57–111

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Lake Titicaca. American Ethnologist 18(1):3-38

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Pirovano, M. 1996 Pescatori di lago. Storia, lavoro, cultura sui laghi della Brianza e sul

Lario. Ricerche di etnografia e storia, Nr. 5: Cattaneo 2003 Vita da pescatori sulla costa

sud-occidentale del Lario. Tesori di Lombardia – Bellavite

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object'': Toward a genetic phenomenology of graph interpretation. Science Technology

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Australia. Oceania 78:46-61



Varela, F. J., E. T. Thompson and E. Rosch. 1991 The Embodied Mind. MIT Press:

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simplicity in complexity. Wiley & Sons: England

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Chapter 7. Discussion: putting individual chapters in perspective

163

Chapter 7 Discussion

The world in which one thinks

is not the world in which one lives.

Gaston Bachelard

In this section I discuss the benefits and the limits of the approach that characterises this

thesis. I undertake this work by putting the four papers in perspective as I address a

number of the questions raised in the Introduction.

7.1 A few steps back to start with…

I referred to Giovanni Bertacchi’s work to introduce this thesis by juxtaposing an

extract from his poem with a recent study of Lake Como’s physical limnology. By

putting the two texts ‘face to face’ my aim was to bring the reader’s attention to the

contrasting elements between two ways of describing the Lake and its physical

dimension, a contrast I have been concerned to explore throughout the thesis. To

emphasize the links between such perspectives, I now include another text, written by a

contemporary of Bertacchi: the limnologist Rina Monti33 (1871 – 1937). An extract of a

scientific monograph she wrote in 1924 about Lake Como in relation to fisheries

applications reads as follows:

The currents of the Lario are in general gentle, except at the mouth of the alpine Adda and at the exit of the emissary at the Lecco bridge. The elders assert that the Adda current continues in the middle of the arm between Colico and the Centro Lago: such a notice, very

33 She was one of the international pioneers in the field of limnology, and also the first woman to hold a university chair in Italy (Creese 2004)


164

exaggerated, must have originated from the observation made from the top of the Mt Legnone, where on clear days can be recognised the Adda, white of suspended silt, entering via a long stretch in the blue lake.

But then the current damps in the middle of the Colico Gulf and continues almost imperceptible along the western shore down to Como to go back up the opposite shore to Bellagio, turn around the promontory and go back down along the right shore [Limonta to Lecco] of the Lecco lake34.

Much more pronounced are the superficial currents determined by the periodic or local winds, which can have a notable influence to concentrate the superficial plankton in certain gulfs, or to transport far away the so-called voltane, fishing nets set in the lake, very deep, hanging only by floats left free at the mercy of the waters.

(Monti 1924: 19)

My emphases in italics are to highlight that the author, an internationally renowned

limnologist who was not from the immediate Lake Como area (although still from the

Lombardia region, near the Lugano lake), had taken into account not only what the

‘elders’ said around the Lake but also the effect of water motions on the displacement of

fishing nets in Lake Como. The understanding of ‘the elders’ is criticised, but

nonetheless considered, and other local uses and knowledges are linked with physical

phenomena in this text. For instance, she describes the regular wind patterns on the

Lake through a narrative of the way sailing boats carrying merchandise used to take

advantage of them, sailing at night from the north down to the city of Como for the

market, and sailing back during the day toward north, pushed by the ‘Breva’ (Monti

1924: 19).

34 An interesting point particularly for readers familiar with limnology is that the conclusion Monti reaches regarding the fate of the riverine current in the Lake are qualitatively similar to the results presented in Chapter 3 (at the time I had no knowledge of this monograph, which I found in the Como library mid-way through my PhD): the Adda current following the western shore of the southwestern arm with a return current on the eastern shore of the same arm; and along the western shore of the southeastern arm, toward the outflow. It would have been interesting to find out about the methods she used (not detailed in the book) to reach these conclusions.


165

This historical text thus easily mixes claims that would have been considered as

expressions of distinct ways of knowing - scientific and local - in the context of today’s

influential epistemologies in the environmental science and management literature, and

of Chapter 5 in this thesis. It illustrates the point that scientific and local knowledge can

and often do intersect or evolve together around elements of divergence and

convergence.

This interpretive point also flows from the analysis developed through Chapter 6, and it

constitutes a first element of response to the questions asked in the Introduction: I have

argued that scientific and local knowledge should not be thought of as different ways of

knowing from an individual, cognitive perspective: they both constitute traditions of

knowledge that emerge through one’s situated engagement in a field of practice (a

physical and social environment) in which one becomes skilled. Scientific and local

fields of practice, or taskscapes, may differ substantially, but they may also intersect and

overlap, for instance in the case of scientists living in the environment they study or

engaging with people who do (as illustrated with Monti’s text above and Chapter 5 of

this thesis), or local knowledge holders using new technologies in their practices35.

Increasingly however, the taskscapes of environmental scientists are numerical and

remote from the physical places they work on, leading to ways of understanding these

environments that often share little resemblance with situated (‘on site’) local

knowledge.

7.2 Useful knowledge – the point is for whom, and how?

In Chapter 6 I chose to theorise these differences in scientific (limnological) and local

(fishing) fields of practices by drawing on the concept and materiality of ‘place’, which

was also my focus in Chapter 4. I return to this matter below. Such a focus led my

original interest away from other analytical angles of analysis that may have been

productive, not least of which the issue of the social organisation of knowledge in

35 During my fieldwork I encountered such cases, for instance the case of a biologist who studies the Lake while also living by its shores and showing a clear love for the place. Also, some of the Lake’s fishers use, for instance, echo-sounders to probe the depth of the Lake and the presence of fish below their boat.


166

different fields of practice. Following this line of thought and beyond, but related to, my

thesis emphasis in the development of knowledge through an individual’s practice, the

following questions may then have been asked: What counts as valid lake knowledge

and how is this knowledge used, in the scientific and local cases? Below I introduce a

selection of responses to these questions – my aim in doing so is to acknowledge their

relevance to the argument developed in particular in Chapter 6 and to a lesser extent in

Chapter 4. I also provide a rough sketch of what an analysis of these issues might have

looked like, had I developed this aspect further in the ethnographic inquiry and the

analysis.

Agrawal (1995) stressed that while bodies of knowledge are always useful, they might

not always be useful to the same people – systems of knowledge are anchored in

specific socio-cultural contexts. Academic environmental science is one such context,

which aims to develop and share knowledge about natural environments that is as

generic as possible so that it may be understandable and useful to other scientists and

possibly environmental managers and other social groups. Therefore knowledge

production is geared towards creating and highlighting connections between different

places (e.g. different lakes and estuaries around the world, research institutes and labs)

and, to be recognised as valid, scientific knowledge must generally be peer-reviewed

and published. Beyond the use of text for the transfer of knowledge, there is an

emphasis on the visualisation of data and results through graphs and maps in the world

of academic environmental science. Relevant organisations of labour, hierarchies and

social strategies are developed around the aim to publish and disseminate the knowledge

that is produced (see Latour’s discussion of inscriptions [1990]).

While the day-to-day practice of science consists in creating knowledge that may be

easily communicated, fishing knowledge on Lake Como is more obviously

performative: the aim of fishers’ knowledge about the lake is that it be acted upon. Even

during apprenticeship, most of the learning occurs through observation and a slow

introduction to active participation to lake fishing (beside tasks that require no fishing-

associated expertise, such as rowing), with only occasional questions and explanations

(Field notes e.g. 27 Sept. 2010). After knowledge is acquired through observation,

mentoring and individual practice, it is notable that some of the fishermen’s knowledge

is even purposely protected by silence (or even fibs [‘balle’ Field notes e.g. 02 Nov.


167

2010]) from concurrents and sometimes administrators. A fisherman from an older

generation told me once in an emphatic way that he ‘wouldn’t even tell his son what he

catches and where!’ (Field notes 02 Nov. 2010 – his son, now an adult fisherman, had

learnt the trade with him, but this quote demonstrates that the concealment of tricks and

knowledge is openly part of the practice of the Lake’s fishermen). Fishers do not

generally engage in extensive collaboration or communication with their peers or with

administrations - they like to mind and protect their own individual business, confident

of their ancestral knowledge of the Lake and its fish, and, as formulated by Pirovano

(1996:228) of a form of ‘extraterritoriality’ allowed by the lake. Among neighbour

fishers on the lake there is no need to talk much either as very often they ‘know’ at a

glance or from the noise of an engine, who is the fisher setting nets a few kilometres

away and what his next move is likely to be.

The extent of such practical, ‘silent’ knowledge finds its way into the subtle hierarchy

that exists between fishers, which is also related to age, family history, geographical

location on the Lake, amount of fish usually caught and level of (non-)engagement with

local authorities. In contrast with the social hierarchy established in academic science,

some of the oldest fishermen hinted at, and sometimes explicated that in their view the

‘real fishermen’ were those who had left school early - for their experience among full-

time fishers had started sooner. Consider, for instance this quote by a retired fisherman

(who had himself started fishing at 10 years old, at the end of primary school):

The modern (his emphasis) fishers that get subventions from the European Union… They take the subventions… but none can prepare or fix a net anymore, now when there is something wrong they throw them away. (…) The rich fishermen, because now they are rich… there is who is a fisherman and has a restaurant, who is a fisherman and has a shop… There are all accountants. There is not one that stopped school at the end of primary school… They’re all accountants! (Interview 14 Oct. 2010)

Of course the idea of what a ‘real fisherman’ is – and therefore of whose fishing

knowledge is valid, when, where and why – is also dynamic. Like all knowledge it is

constantly evolving, and in Como it is changing for instance in particular for the

younger fishermen through exposure to the findings of the fish biologist monitoring the

fish stocks. This introduces yet another notable example of the way local and scientific

knowledge may interweave in day-to-day fishing practice and culture.


168

A similar point about the social and political dimensions of knowledge may be made in

reference to Chapter 4 and the story of the wall on Lake Como. As illustrated by the

data presented in that Chapter, knowledge was used to draw social boundaries. For

instance, to some citizens the idea of belonging to the local community - being a

‘Comasco’ - appeared to be strongly associated with the tacit knowledge of how

important the view of the lake was to the city and its citizens. In these citizens’

comments, the administrators were set outside of these tacit community boundaries as a

consequence of the project’s ignorance of the relevant local body of knowledge.

Likewise, the form of the knowledge available to citizens about the project, most of

which was technical, was itself a boundary and a political statement against any

involvement of the public in the project.

The examination of the relationship between knowledge and power, most notably

explored by Foucault, is an approach that has proven especially useful in the analysis of

environmental conflicts (Escobar 1998; Williams 2000). Within the scope of this thesis,

I am unable to develop here the social-political aspects of knowledge. The descriptions

and analysis introduced above nevertheless suggest that the social organisation of

knowledge production have a major influence on the form of knowledge and the way it

is transmitted and used (see also Barth 2002). It is this social dimension that leads

scientific knowledge to be mainly visual and to be valued for its applicability to many

different yet similar environmental systems (e.g. stratified lakes in general). For the

fishermen knowledge is mainly embodied and difficult to express other than by acting

upon it: its value comes from its direct applicability to the day-to-day job in Lake

Como.

The possibility and usefulness of combining knowledge claims thus depends on the uses

that will be made of that knowledge, the audience to which it is destined and the criteria

that will be used to evaluate and apply it. The four papers that were summarised in the

Introduction and developed in the thesis are to engage readers from different disciplines.

From another vantage point, they speak as a unified whole. I propose below an exercise

that evaluates the outcomes of each one of these papers (Chapters 3 to 6) from the

perspectives of a scientist/engineer, an environmental manager, a local knowledge

holder (fisher, or citizen in the case of Chapter 4) and an anthropologist. These different

viewpoints on the same work project different elements of knowledge, summarised in


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the table below. The bold entries highlight the audience for which each paper was

written.


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Table 9: Possible research outcomes for each of the papers constitutive of the thesis, from the perspectives of a) an environmental scientist/engineer, b) an environmental manager, c)

a local knowledge holder, d) an environmental anthropologist.

Perspective Chapter a) Environmental

scientist/engineer (physical limnologist)

b) Environmental manager c) Local knowledge holder d) Environmental anthropologist

3

Inflow intrusions at

multiple scales in a large

temperate lake

(Limnology and Oceanography)

. Flows paths of inflows of different nature and scales are influenced by the stratification, wind-driven internal waves, basin morphometry and the earth’s rotation in a canyon-shaped stratified lake, and affect transport and mixing of catchment material in the superficial layers of the lake. . Numerical hydrodynamic model performs well in reproducing the internal dynamics of a large stratified lake.

. Changes in inflow regimes, especially due to climate change, may result in changes in lake hydrodynamics. In particular for Lake Como, the flushing in the southwestern arm of the Lake may be affected. . As a first step, the inflows should thus be carefully monitored, as well as precipitations on the catchment and glacier volume. . Occurrence of algae blooms should lead to examination of these variables, to explore the potential connection (as well as others such as temperature and nutrient concentration).

A fisher’s perspective: . It is difficult to see the practical use that could be made of these technical descriptions of lake currents that are bounded in time, especially in relation to fishing. . It is also difficult to see what motivates scientists to conduct such studies, since they have no connection with the Lake and no practical application of their findings. . However, the real-time availability of data showing where the thermocline is could be interesting, since the coregoni are generally caught at that depth and sometimes it is hard to find straight away after strong wind events.

. Direct and local relevance of this study, written in technical language and focused on water currents in a lake in relation to river inflows, is not clear, but it seems to lay in the relationship between these currents and the ecology in the Lake (such as algae blooms). . From the perspective of the anthropology of scientific knowledge, an interesting point is that this paper was conceptualised and written from Perth – remotely from its study site. The use of a numerical model could also be a revealing angle of study. Both points would require ethnographic fieldwork to unravel knowledge claims.


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4

A wall out of place: a

hydrological and socio-

cultural analysis of physical

changes to the lakeshore of Como, Italy

(Ecology and Society)

. The Lake Como catchment should be addressed as a complete hydrological system: ignoring some of its components that are connected to others, such as upstream reservoirs with the rest of the catchment, limits and/or flaws attempt to act on changing the system. . A decision-support system could be developed, including all components of the system, to dynamically allocate optimal water volumes to each component.

. The paper is a case for reforms toward spatially integrated management in the Lake Como catchment (including dialogue with upstream reservoir users), as well as more public participation. . The paper suggests that focusing on the meanings and attachments related to the place to be transformed during the early planning stages may help foster early public participation in environmental management, and avoid the form of NIMBY* reaction described in this case.

*NIMBY stands for ‘Not in my backyard’, a term that is commonly used in the environmental management literature to describe cases such as the social movement in Como

A Como citizen’s perspective: . Diagrams on the fluxes of water through the catchment show some of the constraints for downstream dam managers that are difficult to see from Como. They also highlight that the rain events are getting more intense, which can be observed day-to-day, and that the dam management has actually improved with regard to flood control in the last two decades. . Regarding the reaction to the wall, the connection with attachments to place, social cohesion and political discontent highlighted in the paper is a pretty obvious one. The situation however was more complex, especially the political/financial aspects of it that were not addressed in this study.

The paper adds to the literature describing the role of attachments to place, combined with social and political resentment, and a sense of common identity, in fostering social movements. . A theoretical interest of the paper is that it canvasses literature from environmental psychology, which is an angle that can sometimes enrich environmental anthropology analyses. . A methodological interest is triangulation of socio-cultural data, mixing statistics and text analysis. A limitation is however embedded in the data themselves: expanded ethnographic data would have helped canvass the complexity of the case and draw more useful recommendations from it, especially through an early engagement with different stages of the project.


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5

Fishing nets and data loggers:

contributions of local knowledge

to physical limnology

(PNAS)

. Fishermen have a local understanding of some hydrodynamic processes in Lake Como. . Local knowledge may be useful to physical limnologists by providing them with a perspective on lake hydrodynamics that covers different scales to that covered by the numerical data: in the case study, spatial scales smaller than the resolution of the monitoring probes.

. The hydrodynamic processes described here, gyres and return flows, may be indirectly relevant to lake management through the distribution of nutrients and algae in the lake – but these specific aspects remain to be studied. . However, some zones of more stagnant water are characterised, and may need more water quality monitoring attention. . The paper shows a good performance of the hydrodynamic model over a year: such a model could be a useful tool to determine (for instance) zones of relatively stagnant water that might facilitate algal blooms. . The fishers may be able to contribute more helpful knowledge for lake management, for example with regards to long-term changes in water quality.

A fisher’s perspective: . A computer model was able to reproduce some of the patterns that have always been known by fishermen of the Lake, for individual fishing zones, which is interesting. . The figures show a somewhat fixed picture however, while in reality the currents vary, even if by a small amount, every single night. . This provides a different perspective on things that are known, but may not be useful for the profession: the Lake currents are still, so far, better known from the clues given by the Lake, one night of fishing after another. As one may say ‘practice is still better than grammar’ (Field notes 18 Oct. 2010) from a fishing perspective.

. The paper presents ethnographic data on fishers’ understanding of lake hydrodynamics, which is not common especially for the processes described (a point of ethnoscientific interest). . There are epistemological implications that are not addressed: local and scientific knowledge are treated like very distinct bodies of knowledge, local knowledge is seen as secondary (the primary concern here is science) - the criteria of science are used to assess the validity of local knowledge, embedding a power relationship between traditions of knowledge. . From the perspective of an anthropologist, the ethnographic data lack development and attention to cultural life and nuance cannot be expanded fully; the maps lack a narrative context.


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6

The making and meaning of

environmental knowledge: a fisherman, a

limnologist and an Italian lake

(American Anthropologist)

. This paper discusses science and fishing as day-to-day practices; it highlights the development of expertise through some form of habituation. . It also stresses the detachment of today’s environmental scientists from the systems they work on. As a reaction, a point may be raised: isn’t such detachment useful to produce science that is objective and neutral?

. If management is the bridging, or at least accommodating, of different perspectives, including, often, local and scientific, then the paper suggests that a focus on ‘place’ and practices may help connect and define common goals.

A fisher’s perspective: . The paper suggests that one learns through imitation, practice, and attunement of the senses to the aspects of the world around relevant to their job. This was known for the profession of fisher, but it is an unusual way to look at that of scientist.

. An epistemological point of interest is the argument, based on substantial data, that both local and scientific knowledge of the lake emerge from the same kind of engagement in fields of practice (or, after Ingold, taskscapes) . A theoretical point is the use of Foucault’s heterotopia to describe the taskscapes of the environmental scientists: writing about a lake but really knowing a largely digital place: the lake’s expression in numbers and graphs. . A practical implication is that a focus on place along with the articulation of scientific practices may help to connect with local knowledge holders ‘in place’.

Chapter 7. A discussion: putting the papers in perspective

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The interpretations in Table 9 raise some issues related to the problem of generalization,

and some of the perspectives might be seen as reductive. There are indeed limits to

these readings in the table, as they are my own, looking through the various research

lenses that have led to the production of such different papers as Chapters 3 to 6, and

inspired by my readings and comments from a range of people during these studies. The

point I am trying to make with this table, however, is that different perspectives on the

same work can absorb, indicate and interpret varied information and present a wide

spectrum of knowledge and emphases. Below I develop some of these different

perspectives to consider what might support or challenge their engagement with each

other.

7.2.1 The grammar and the practice36: environmental science and local knowledge

First, it is legitimate to ask why natural scientists and local knowledge holders would

consider working together – and by extension, why local residents and decision-makers

would jointly engage in environmental management (through ‘public participation’).

Indirectly, the question raised from the scientist’s perspective about Chapter 6 asks

whether interaction with local knowledge holders is worthwhile or even desirable, when

the focus is on the production of neutral scientific knowledge – in the sense that it seeks

to describe empirical data as closely as possible while avoiding any bias (for instance,

by local interests).

There are two related issues here embedded in one: the production of environmental

knowledge and its use. With regard to the production of knowledge, my answer to the

scientist (who could be myself) is certainly ‘yes’: when environmental scientists

describe phenomena occurring in a particular environment, they should, when relevant

and possible, engage in a conversation with local knowledge holders. I argue that in the

same way as a critical conversation among scientists within the same field about

different places (through publications, conferences etc.) will result in enhanced

36 ‘Practice is worth more than grammar’ is a common saying that the fishers used when referring to their skill in dealing with the Lake, and their perspective on scientific knowledge (e.g. Field notes 18 Oct. 2010)


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theoretical environmental knowledge, the same kind of critical engagement, this time

about the same place but across various knowledge groups, can deepen situated

environmental knowledge. This point rests on the epistemological foundations

discussed in Chapter 6, and it is illustrated in Chapter 5 from the perspective of

scientific knowledge. An environmental scientist’s research is always biased by the

domain they chose to study, the resolution of the data they work with, the tacit choices

of the ‘issue’ they need to solve, and the hypotheses they decide to test. In this context,

and in the same way as more data about a system is generally more desirable (certainly

at least at the stage of problem-definition) a more pluralistic view of the system through

engagement with local knowledge holders represents an opportunity for the

development of more complete, complex and useful environmental knowledge, rather

than a risk of bias or distraction.

Likewise but from the perspective of local knowledge holders, being exposed to the

perspective of natural science on their environment can help improve practices through

access to some new data, particularly regarding various rates of environmental change.

In the case of the Lake Como fishers, there were no direct or immediate practical

benefits from our interactions that they could implement in their day-to-day practice

(besides, perhaps, to gain access to the address of a website with real-time lake

temperature data), but some of them benefited from an ongoing dialogue with a local

biologist working with fish stocks. One other potential benefit of engagement across

scientific and local traditions of knowledge is that it is likely to make each group more

intelligible to the other, in terms of values, understandings and also socio-political

positions, which can only help relationships with institutions and environmental

management bodies (Chapter 4).

Such engagement is not, of course, always relevant or possible. Sometimes, there are no

local knowledge holders for environmental processes described by scientists (in

particular, but not only, when these processes happen at space and time scales not

accessible by direct human perception – such as in the upper atmosphere, or micro-scale

turbulence in water bodies for instance) and sometimes there are, but it might not be

possible or productive for scientists to engage with them, or vice-versa. Furthermore,

exchanges across traditions of knowledge are not always as easy as in the Como case,

where scientific and local knowledge of the lake rested on cosmologies that were not


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conflicting – the principles of western science being part of the fishermen’s

conceptualisation of nature through their life and education in Italy. Therefore the

interactions and knowledge claims of the fishermen and the French academic that I was

did not unsettle the very foundations of each other’s understandings of the world. When

such destabilisation occurs, it results in a kind of ontological tension that makes

consideration and intelligibility (and thus knowledge-sharing) between traditions of

knowledge more challenging, as documented for example by Corrigan between beliefs

and practices associated with the Dreaming of Aboriginal Australians and the academic

discourses of archaeologists (Corrigan 2010). It follows that beside time and effort (and

sometimes cost, e.g. of field work), a level of awareness and openness to different

cosmologies is often required on both sides for a meaningful exchange between

knowledge groups. Therefore and as reminded by Huntington (2000), integrating local

and scientific knowledge should not be reduced to a token, or part of a common or

standard framework. Its relevance needs to be argued for, and substantiated along the

way. The main point is that in many cases such engagement across traditions of

knowledge is relevant and possible in environmental studies, but it does not always

happen as a matter of course or design.

With regards to the use of environmental knowledge and when political interests are at

stake (i.e. in most cases), the interests and power relationships embedded in multiple

conceptualisations of an environment must be unpacked, for the focus of the exchange

to move from the description and interpretation of empirical data to the political

positions of the different groups and their aims. Public participation in environmental

management requires such clarification of goals and motivations, ‘transparency’ in this

context. In the case of Chapter 4 for instance the lake was clearly part of distinct

realities for the technical experts who had designed the flood protection structure and

for the citizens of Como: the engineers arguably seeing the lake in terms of resources

and risks to be taken advantage of, or addressed; compared with the local residents

seeing it as an integral and essential part of the cityscape, to be preserved. The

acknowledgement of these positions and their complexities should have been a starting

point of a participatory process regarding the flood-prevention project.

Following this line of thought the lake could be conceptualised as multiple (Mol 2002)

as it was numerical in an Australian office (Chapters 3 and 5), fishing grounds for local


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fishermen (Chapters 5 and 6), reservoir for downstream farmers, potential flood risk for

engineers and a vital part of the city for citizens (Chapter 4). As shown in Chapter 6,

people develop a form of connection to their field of practice – in the case explored

here, to their conceptualisation of the lake – that becomes a part of their identity. In

science this may take the form of a passion for one’s work and the artefacts that support

it or that it produces (such as computer programs, models, theories). Bourdieu (1997:10)

calls this engagement illusio, the belief of the practitioner in the issues that have

emerged from, and are specific to, their field of practice (such as physical limnology, or

fishing) and that may appear disinterested to people external from the field. The

difference between scientific and fishing illusio explained for instance the reaction

(retranscribed in table 9) of one fisher to my limnology studies: he acknowledged the

work but could not understand where the motivation to carry it out had come from.

Through a comparable engagement in their fishing practices, the fishermen had

expressed strong meanings and attachments associated with the places where their life

and work unfolded, most notably the Lake. This form of love of the place, intertwined

with habit and practical skill was expressed in the introductory emphasis through

Bertacchi’s poem, evident in my fishers’ interviews, and part of the origin of Como

citizens’ social movement described in Chapter 4. In Como, communicating across

traditions of knowledge meant negotiating a dialectical process between the multiple

visions of the Lake and the places where they had emerged. This topic was explored in

Chapter 6 and I develop the relevance of the notion of ‘place’ further below.

7.2.2 Anthropologists and scientists across traditions of knowledge, within their own,

and ‘in place’

Anthropologists can play a crucial role in fostering, while at the same time taking part

in, a dialogue between various traditions of knowledge. This is the case through their

potential role as socio-cultural interlocutor and translator for local groups, their

commitment to unpacking cultural assumptions that may be taken for granted in various

communities of knowledge (including academic science), and their sensitivity to the

power relations (and their implications) embedded in the relationships between these

groups. These concerns are obvious in the last column of the table as well as in Chapter


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6, and they are crucial in environmental matters that are associated, as noted in the

Introduction, with many contests over knowledge and ownership.

At the same time, anthropologists must be mindful of their own assumptions as they are

of others’ while participating in, or facilitating, cross-disciplinary work. Tensions and

even oppositions that can often be related to different ontological positions along the

realist/relativist continuum have long marked interactions between cultural

anthropologists and natural scientists37. It is beyond the scope of this thesis to explore

the countless variations of ontological positions that have been developed between these

two extremes and their relationship with environmental studies (for a helpful discussion

see Escobar 2010). It is useful to mention here however that the productivity of cross-

disciplinary dialogues involving anthropologists and environmental scientists relies on

their ability to articulate their respective ontological positions and to transform possible

oppositions into productive tensions (Turnbull 2005).

Ontological and epistemological positions are related to theories of ‘place’ and the

ways in which they informed the argument put forward in this thesis. Notions of ‘place’

have been closely associated with environmental studies in my research, in the context

of cross-disciplinary (Chapter 4), inter-disciplinary (Chapter 5) and trans-disciplinary

work (Chapter 6). This was largely the case as I became aware of the value of

enmeshing socio-cultural and environmental research in the complexity of a particular

place and time, and as I explored my own assumptions about reality and knowledge.

The last guiding question in the Introduction raised queries about the role of place in

bridging together traditions of knowledge within and beyond academia, and below I

summarise responses to this question.

‘Place’ is a complex notion, and in the thesis I have drawn on several understandings of

the term anchored in different disciplines. Before engaging in any reflection about place

and as I was working toward Chapter 3, my understanding of place might have been

close to a rough-and-ready physical conceptualisation, possibly similar to Newton’s

37 I purposefully use the term ‘continuum’ rather than the term ‘divide’ that is often found in the literature, because I believe it is helpful to keep the way between these two extremes open to a variety of nuanced positions.


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definition of the concept as ‘a part of space which a body takes up’ (cited in Casey

1997: 144). My idea of it evolved as I thought and read about the socio-cultural

dimensions of place, an evolution that is reflected in the thesis chapters.

Chapter 4 built on an understanding of place that was influenced mainly by the human

geography and environmental psychology literature, and on the idea of a ‘sense of

place’ that surely had a social dimension, but that was mostly described as a connection

that develops between individuals and their physical surroundings. In the relevant

literature, place is described as relational but the focus is on measures and analyses of

individual psychological responses such as attachment and satisfaction with the place

one lives in (e.g. Stedman 2002). Arguably because of its quantitative dimension, this

understanding of place has been taken up in some environmental management studies

and linked for instance to oppositional reactions to environmental changes (e.g. Devine-

Wright 2009).

In Chapter 6, I was interested in the production of place through socio-cultural

practices, a topic that has been addressed in anthropology as a reaction to the ‘erasure of

place’38 (in Escobar’s words) that had resulted from a focus of the discipline on notions

of ‘space’ and ‘networks’ through, for instance, an interest in globalisation (Escobar

2001). Such erasure of place and a focus on space also appeared to be an effect of the

production of ‘place-independent’ knowledge (transferable from place to place) by the

natural sciences. My interest in practice theories of knowledge, pursued in Chapter 6,

brought my attention to phenomenological perspectives on place as a more fluid and

emergent concept than the notion adopted in Chapter 4. In particular through the work

of Tim Ingold (e.g. 2000), it became clear to me that a local, situated component to

knowledge is, so to speak, ‘inescapable’ even for scientists: paraphrasing Escobar’s

expression, knowledge ‘sits in places’39 (2001). My interest was then to expose and

disentangle the relationship that environmental scientists may have with the places

where they produce knowledge and the places about which they produce knowledge, an

attempt that I initiated in Chapter 6.

39 ‘Culture sits in places’ (Escobar 2001)


180

Finally, the notion of ‘place’ has an important role to play in the integration of several

traditions of environmental knowledge, as argued in Chapter 4 and as exemplified in

Chapter 5. To be clear, I do not mean by such a focus on ‘place’ to suggest that there is

no value in remote numerical analyses of data from environmental systems – which in

passing would be undermining part of my own work, as constituting for instance the

whole of Chapter 3. To the contrary, this kind of research based on analyses of large

databases uniquely allows scientists and engineers to focus on dominant processes in

environmental systems, and to identify leverage points in the dynamics of these that

would often be impossible to detect at the scales of direct (non-mediated) human

perception. However, and as shown in Chapter 5, such remote knowledge makes sense

beyond the theoretical when it is brought back into place, within a particular

environment’s local complexity. I argued that scientific and local traditions of

knowledge may only be brought together in place and in practice, and anthropological

inquiry may constitute a bridge in that process. I concur with Robinson (2008) who

argued for a type of inter-disciplinarity that is issue-driven and locally anchored. In the

same way as theories of reality only make sense when applied to day-to-day life,

environmental science makes sense ‘in place’.

7.3 Limitations and future work

There are plenty of questions left unanswered, and unasked, by this thesis that aimed to

be an experiment of thinking and practising across, and beyond, disciplines. The main

issue to be raised in this context, I believe, is the fact that various traditions of thought

merged and enacted through my individual research practice40. This personal

engagement across fields means that I have sometimes generalised the perspectives of

natural scientists and anthropologists in a way that can be seen as problematic, for I am

not fully inscribed in either of these traditions of knowledge. At the same time I am

embedded in both, a point that leads to a simplified view of the relationships between

40 This is not to downplay the influence that many people, and especially my supervisors, have had on my thinking within and beyond the two fields canvassed. My only intention here is to highlight the differences between a cross-disciplinary working team, with experts in each of the fields concerned, and a case where such conversations happening, most often, in my own mind.


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various traditions of knowledge: I came later to anthropology but in the last two years of

my candidature I was at once and alternately limnologist and anthropologist, bypassing

many issues of unintelligibility and of contests over power and identity that are often

faced by people working in inter-disciplinary teams of experts (Jolly and Kavanagh

2009; Strang 2009).

Finally, my cross-disciplinary engagement also meant that I was not able to contribute

the depth in each one of these fields that I might have, had I focused on either one of

them for this PhD. The breadth of this thesis is at once its strength and a limitation, and

it is almost certain that readers who are experts in either of the disciplines will find areas

that lack depth. For instance, I could have explored further the origin of the lake gyres

and return flows I describe in Papers 1 and 3: what is the relative influence on their

formation of wind-driven internal waves, of the bathymetry or of the Coriolis force? I

was certainly curious to explore these processes further, but more curious to discuss

their relevance for local people. Likewise in anthropology, readers might find a lack of

development of socio-political issues, which are always relevant to environmental

studies. Anthropologists might also find my generalisations and distinctive uses of

terms of ‘local’ and ‘scientific’ unclear or poorly supported as I risked an

overgeneralisation in order to be able to use these concepts in relation to each other in

my argument, and to facilitate discussion about their differences and similarities. This

qualitative emphasis also applies to the bounded concept of ‘natural environment’,

which I used through the thesis as it is a core concept of environmental science and

engineering, and against which Ingold urged caution (2011: 130-146).

I am aware that a tendency to categorise, and at times fail to contextualise adequately,

may be problematic. In the context of this doctoral study, however, it allowed a

dialogue between fields that typically engage in categorisations with different levels of

caution. Consider water as a metaphor: water in a lake is water whether it is recent or

ancient, flowing fast or slow, and yet for the sake of description, explanation and

application, limnologists distinguish masses of water and call them say, epilimnion,

metalimnion, inflow intrusion etc. These are useful approximations of a complex and

fluid reality. So too the categories of knowledge used in this thesis – they are an

approximation of the complex and fluid reality described by Ingold (2010; 2011) in his

discussions of the ‘fluid world’, and in conceptualisations of knowledge as flows,


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currents and cross-currents that mix, transport, evaporate and precipitate just like water

in and over a lake.

7.4 References

Agrawal, A. 1995. Dismantling the Divide Between Indigenous and Scientific

Knowledge. Development and Change 26:413-439



building resilience for complexity and change. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.


Casey, E. 1993. Getting back into place: Toward a renewed understanding of the place-

world. Indiana University Press: Bloomington

Casey, E. 1997. The fate of place. University of California Press: Berkeley









Escobar, A. 2001. Culture sits in places: reflections on globalism and subaltern

strategies of localization. Political Geography 20: 139–174

Escobar, A. 2010. Postconstructivist political ecologies. Pages 91-104 in M. R. Redclift

and G. Woodgate (Eds.) The International Handbook of Environmental Sociology


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Edward Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham, UK










and Society 6(3-4):183-196




Mol, A. 2002. The body multiple: ontology in medical practice. Duke University Press










34:561

Strang, V. 2009. Integrating the social and natural sciences in environmental research: a


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discussion paper. Environment Development and Sustainability 11:1–18

Turnbull, D. 2005. Multiplicity, criticism and knowing what to do next: way-finding in

a transmodern world. Response to Meera Nanda’s Prophets facing backwards. Social

Epistemology 19(1):19–32

Williams, D-M. 2000. Representations of nature on the Mongolian steppe: An


102(3):503-519

Chapter 8. Conclusions

185

Chapter 8 Conclusions, and a statement about how and

why this thesis might have been different …

Inter-disciplinary work is difficult to evaluate (Strathern 2007), for one may ask: which

criteria should be used for evaluation, and from which discipline? In my Conclusion, I

return to the dialectical process that has been at the centre of thesis developments. In

particular I highlight key epistemological and methodological outcomes – the elements

that can be drawn from interwoven studies into other academic or applied research, and

the variety of meanings attached to these. I conduct the evaluation by attempting to

outline what this thesis would have been like had it been grounded in one discipline

only. I hope to be able to pinpoint key outcomes that can be associated with the inter-

disciplinary and comparative nature of this thesis, and its implications.

In the Discussion I have examined each one of the constitutive papers from different

standpoints, within and beyond academia (Table 9). Consider now two broad academic

perspectives, that of the environmental scientist/engineer, and that of the social

scientist/anthropologist, and their viewpoint on the thesis as a whole. The three

questions that guide this reflective and interpretive Conclusion are the following:

• What would the thesis have looked like had I remained at the CWR only?

• What if I had been a full-time anthropology student from day one?

• What substantive and epistemological insights did the eventual inter-disciplinary

approach add to the thesis’ argument and outcomes?

8.1 A process-focused contribution to physical limnology

In the first case, Chapter 3 would have been just the same. For the next three chapters,

however, things would have most likely taken a different course. PhD theses at CWR


186

and other environmental engineering departments tend to be focused on natural

processes and phenomena rather than on particular geographic sites. The aim is to

facilitate outcomes that are transferable to others sites, or places, rendering them useful

for other researchers. Thus, for instance, the theses of Shimizu (2008) and Okely (2010)

address specific aspects of lake hydrodynamics via studies conducted in lakes and

reservoirs in Japan, Israel, Australia, Mexico and Kenya. Each project did not rely on

these researchers being physically present at their key research site: in some cases they

did go to conduct a few days of fieldwork, in other cases they did not and relied on the

numerical data collected by others or by automated probes.

Had my focus remained fully within environmental engineering and physical limnology,

it is likely that my studies would have been mostly conducted from UWA in Perth, but

broadened geographically in terms of foci from Lake Como to other lakes. The topic

would have remained concentrated on a sufficiently narrow and unexplored aspect of

lake hydrodynamics, to allow for the development of new knowledge. This could have

been, for instance, the fate of riverine inflows in stratified conditions and its impact on

the mixing and transport of catchment material through water bodies.

Limnology being multi-disciplinary, my thesis could also have remained focused on

Lake Como and linked the hydrodynamics of Chapter 3 with ecological data and

analyses (related to nutrients and phytoplankton), similar to the research conducted by

Hillmer (2007) on the coastal ocean of Western-Australia. In fact this idea was part of

my original project and articulated in a thesis proposal prepared early 2008.

Finally, environmental engineering departments, including CWR, are conducting more

and more research related to environmental management through the development of

decision-support systems. An approach that is often taken consists in the formulation of

an objective function for a given environmental system, composed quantitative

indicators representing ‘ecosystem services’ (that could be the price of water,

concentration of phosphorus in water, hydropower production etc.; e.g. Kristiana 2009),

and this could have been another course for the thesis to follow. In this case, Chapter 4

might have had the same topic, with the same hydrological component and the socio-

cultural component replaced by some quantification of the different objectives related to

lake levels (see for instance the work of Galelli and Soncini-Sessa 2010).


187

In short, the thesis would have been quantitative, with a stronger and narrower focus on

hydrodynamics (of Lake Como and other lakes), or including connections between

hydrodynamics, aquatic ecology and quantified lake management objectives.

8.2 An in-depth ethnographic inquiry into people’s relationships to Lake Como

If I had been an anthropology student from the outset of my PhD, many things would

have been different too. Firstly, Chapter 3 would not have existed, for that paper is

totally anchored in physical limnology. Neither would Chapter 5 have existed, since the

idea for this paper emerged from the connections between the fishers’ narratives and my

previous knowledge of the Lake’s hydrodynamics.

I would also have spent a longer period, of at least a year, in the ethnographic field.

Assuming I had been in Como when the social movement of the ‘wall’ developed, I

would probably have studied it as it relates strongly to people’s understandings and

relationships with the Lake, and local socio-cultural and political life. I would have

spent much more time conducting fieldwork, talking to different parties involved,

observing and experiencing everyday life, and probably developing a more refined and

nuanced picture of the social movement than described in the socio-cultural section of

Chapter 4. My approach would have been qualitative and my analyses and writing

developed for anthropologists: I might have carried out a questionnaire and statistical

analyses, but only as an auxiliary approach to complement the elicitation and analysis of

ethnographic data.

As for the hydrological part of Chapter 4, I could not have written it had I majored in

anthropology only. I would have had to construct my understanding of these relevant

phenomena on interviews with experts, such as the dam manager. On the one hand such

an approach and more time in the field might have allowed me to have greater contact

with more ‘stakeholders’, such as the hydropower companies running upstream

reservoirs, benefiting a more pluralistic and complex vision of the catchment

management. On the other hand, that vision would have been based on different

people’s perceptions of the phenomena of lake level variation and flood rather than my

own research directly drawn from the numerical data.


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Assuming I had still been interested in investigating people’s perceptions and

understandings of the Lake’s physicality and water currents, I might have initiated my

study with the professional fishermen as I did, while also talking to other groups of

people such as lake divers and sailors. The focus on the currents might have led to

discussions about issues more clearly relevant to the fishers such as the fish, the

evolutions of the profession, relationships with fishery management institutions etc.

Indeed, there are not so many things to say about the currents, if one does not have any

prior understanding of patterns of water motions in lakes. Instead of this focus on

physical phenomena I might have developed further the social dimension of the

fishermen’s practices, and Chapter 6 could have then shared parallels with the work of

Pálsson (1994), where a discussion of enskilment encompasses fishers and

ethnographers rather than fishers and limnologist as in my current Chapter 6.

Had an interest in the water currents persisted, which I think is not very likely because it

is not very obviously relevant to the fishers’ lives, I might have approached a physical

limnologist to ask for their perspective on the fishers’ knowledge collected about the

currents (assuming I would have had the idea to map the currents without a natural

science background). Some version of Chapter 5 could have emerged from that

interaction, had it become a collaboration, and then I might have decided to pursue

ethnographic fieldwork in a lake research institute such as CWR. A different version of

Chapter 6 might have been written, with someone else’s limnological knowledge

combined with my anthropological description and analyses. My own contribution to

both those fields of knowledge, however, and thus to a thesis, would have been

qualitative and anchored entirely within a humanities and social science framework.

8.3 More than the sum of its parts?

The first and most obvious outcome of the thesis and the way it eventually turned out is

methodological. Papers 1 to 4 are respectively: mono-disciplinary, cross-disciplinary,

inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary. This was a progression from working in one

discipline (Chapter 3) to working in two separate disciplines and juxtaposing outcomes

(Chapter 4), working in two at the same time as a dialectic: one approach shaping the

other (Chapter 5), and finally, adding an enhanced socio-cultural, theoretical and


189

reflexive emphasis to the picture (Chapter 6). These papers together and independently

illustrate a variety of ways to approach work across disciplines, depending on the nature

of the issue to be addressed. All of these methods enabled the production of substantive

insights, developed in the papers, which could not have emerged from work carried out

in a single discipline.

This leads me to the second outcome, which is epistemological. My data and analyses

have shown, following Ingold (2000) and others, that the experiential knowledge

emerging from fields of practice is a major component of scientific and local knowledge

alike, through socialisation, habituation and enskilment. Accessing the way such

knowledge develops and accumulates is difficult, precisely because it is so embedded in

our day-to-day lives. Conceptualising knowledge as practice allows the researcher,

when exposed to different lines of thought on common issues, to reason through and

make plain these tacit, taken-for-granted aspects their own tradition of knowledge. This

in turn is useful to define common objectives (and solutions) across them, and to jointly

work toward these. My point is that a focus on knowledge as practice is a productive

way to work across traditions of knowledge on complex social and environmental

problems.

Because this claim is based on practice theory and anthropological concepts, it might be

opaque to a non-anthropologist reader. To make this epistemological point in a different

way, it may be helpful to think about this concept through the simple equation (Eq. 8)

proposed by the cognitive scientist and philosopher Joshua Greene (2007):

TD

TI

= f ((WP −WE )2)

Eq. 8

Greene’s caption for this equation is: ‘The optimal ratio of deliberate thinking (Td) to

intuitive thinking (Ti) is a function of the difference between the world we inhabit at

present (WP) and the world we evolved in (WE)’ (2007).

Consider applying this relationship to a researcher, who is expert in a particular

discipline. When the researcher is working in his or her own discipline, their ‘present

world’ (Wp) is very close to the ‘research world’ they evolved in and are familiar with

(WE), thus the right hand side of the equation ((Wp - WE)2) is very small. In this case,


190

Ingold and other theorists emphasising knowledge as practice and skill would suggest

that the researcher’s work tends to ‘flow’ and to be efficient, and that their thinking

tends to be mainly intuitive as their experience of the context, or ‘educated attention’

(Ingold 2000:22) allows them to be quickly and selectively responsive to the

information they need in their current task. This is consistent with the equation, as it

suggests that intuitive thinking (Ti) is large while the laborious deliberate thinking (Td)

is small, and thus the ratio on the left of the equation is very small, too.

Now what if the researcher is exposed to a ‘research world’ that is not familiar, such as

through inter-disciplinary collaboration? In that case, their unfamiliarity with their

current research context symbolised by the difference (WP –WE) on the right hand side

of the equation increases. The ratio on the left hand side of the equation therefore

increases also, which means that the engagement in deliberate, self-reflexive thinking

(Td) increases over the habitual intuitive thinking that constitutes their tacit disciplinary

expertise. This, I argued, facilitates the researcher’s awareness of their own disciplinary

assumptions, and sets the basis for a reflexive dialogue between disciplines that is

difficult (it doesn’t ‘flow’) but productive. It is also the case of exposure and openness

to other traditions of knowledge through ethnographic fieldwork, and it was certainly

the case for my work as the fishers’ understanding of the Lake’s physics triggered the

reflection that I developed in Chapter 6.

Clearly, what made this thesis more than the sum of its parts was the sometimes-

unsettling dialogue occurring between the different thinking habits that are part of

academic disciplines. Strathern proposed that information-sharing across disciplines

may be a criteria used to assess interdisciplinary work (2007), and my own engagement

in both parties of the dialogue made the exchange continuous, shaping this work from

both sides in the manner of Escher’ ‘Drawing hands’ that were in Chapter 2 (Fig. 5).

To summarise and conclude, this thesis has argued that it is epistemologically

appropriate and practically useful to engage in a dialog between traditions of knowledge

(within and beyond academia) for the production of environmental knowledge and the

resolution of environmental issues that are concrete and situated. In these cases, a

reflexive, trans-disciplinary examination of the social and geographical conditions of

knowledge production across knowledge groups presents an important place to start.


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8.4 References

Galelli, S. and R. Soncini-Sessa. 2010. Combining metamodelling and stochastic

dynamic programming for the design of reservoir release policies. Environmental

Modelling & Software 25:209–222

Greene, J. 2007. In Formulae for the 21st century – Edge: World question Center.

http://edge.org/3rd_culture/serpentine07/serpentine07_index.html

Hillmer, I. A. 2007. Scales of interactions between physical processes, primary

producers and nutrients in aquatic ecosystems. PhD Thesis Ph.D - University of

Western Australia, Centre for Water Research



Kristiana, R. 2010. Sustainability assessment in water management: the application and

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Thesis - University of Western Australia, Centre for Water Research


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Appendix A (Chapter 4)

Coding frame used to analyze textual items (letters and online comments)

Category Theme Emotion Anger Sadness Surprise Shame Relationship to place Physical landscape, aesthetics Cultural/personal meaning of the lake and/or lakeshore Cultural/personal meaning of the city Social ‘Us’, Comaschi [Como residents] Collective support and efficacy of the protest Social continuity: reference to past and/or future

generations Accountability Naming responsible people, calling for sanctions Concerns with implementation process (political)

Legitimacy Economic implications Transparency of political process Critical awareness of lack of citizen’s interest at the outset

Action Stimulation Sharing of information Organization of events

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Appendix B (Chapter 4)

Quotes extracted from textual data and translated into English

1. In the presentation it was all-beautiful, the virtual pictures are still there, how beautiful! A shame they are only virtual (…). Please, give us the floods back and resign right away: I am one who voted for you. (Letter published on 25/09/09)

2. But, how could they do such a thing to the living heart of our beloved city (…)? I almost have tears in my eyes. (Letter published on 5/10/09)

3. My beautiful lake, to which I am very much attached, and to which I had even

dedicated years ago a poem, in dialect to better express my deep feelings for it, cannot disappear this way (Letter published on 27/09/09)

4. No one can steal the lake... Leave us at least this little bit of nature that remains to be seen and admired! (Letter published on 25/09/09)

5. When I was a little boy on Saturday afternoons, my parents used to take me to the lakeshore to stroll and admire our lake. Then I grew up and I used to go with my friends, with my girlfriend. Now I am married, I went for so many walks there with my wife and each time we would stop on a bench to admire the lake! Now I have a child and I would like to be able to take her there, too, to admire the lake. Don’t cancel the lake from us, please don’t do it. It is beautiful to see it in the morning when I go to work and to greet it at night before going back home. It is part of my life. (Letter published on 30/09/09)

6. I have lived on milk and lake since my childhood that is since 75 years. I remember my dad who, every night after dinner, regardless of the weather and the season used to go out to the square to see his lake. When he came back, we used to ask him, for a joke: ‘Dad, is the lake still there?’ And his answer was: ‘It is there and it is always more beautiful’. I think that now he would be turning in his grave. (Letter published on 1 Oct. 2009)

7. I would like for tomorrow’s children to be able to stroll on the lakeshore with grandparents or parents, and stop enchanted throwing bread to the ducks and admiring the arrival of the swans, like we all did… (…) I would like for the lake

Appendices

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to remain everything it has been for us, grown-up Comaschi. (…) This wall prevents all of this! (Comment posted on 24/09/09, accessed on 14 Apr 2010)

8. How was it possible to design and build this horror? But those who have the power to govern are Italians? Or extraterrestrial aliens? (Letter published on 01/10/09)

9. If the city lost the view of the Lario, it would lose itself (Letter published on 25 Sept. 2009)

10. Como cannot be apart from the lake. Como is ‘the lake’. (Letter published on 05/10/09)

11. It’s as if in Milan they decided to cover all the duomo and hide it from people’s view… But are we joking? It’s like taking off the soul of the city! (Letter published on 26/09/09)

12. The offense to the environment is the wall in construction. The lake, the lakeshore and the old town are a continuous whole: they are three inseparable realities in osmosis. The fracture caused by the wall breaks an equilibrium embedded in the culture of Como that lives serenely its panorama. (Architect, letter published on 30/09/09)

13. In Como fortunately, it is not so frequent to end up with the high waters, it is not necessary to ‘secure’ the city permanently, Como already has its walls, of another epoch, function and charm. (letter published on 02/10/09, [reference to the historical walls surrounding the old part of town])

14. Dismantlement of this wall of shame, which is useless! Almost surely we won’t get any more floods, considering the climatic situation and the [lake levels managing body] (Letter published on 29/09/09)

15. Considering also that the flood events, as years go by, become less and less intense, maybe also because the gates in Lecco/Olginate are being better managed, I wonder in the end why this useless ‘wall’ has been built. (Letter published on 29/09/09)

16. How often has the lake been flooding? Every 3/4/5 years? And how much did it cost considering that everything is always covered by the insurances? (Letter published on 26/09/09)

17. Between walls, barriers and cement casts a go-go, now our lake has been caged and closed like a vulgar hydroelectric reservoir. (…) a project that has closed

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the lake but also the doors to all sensitivity and culture. (Letter published on 27/09/09)

18. The beauty and the romanticism of the lake on the square well surpassed the (few and well compensated) [flood] damage to the shore owners: besides, the flooding lake only took what was already its: Piazza Cavour used to be the port of Como, without walls, without roads, without benches, without barriers, without brigands, but with a splendid city at its back. (Letter published on 26/09/09)

19. I prefer a prospective week of lake flooding than a permanent cancellation of the landscape. (Comment posted on 24/09/09, accessed on 14/4/10)

20. There may be nothing left to do for us but cry by the wall, by our own wailing wall, trying to remember the glories of the past. (Letter published on 26/09/09)

21. But… I was born with the view to the lake and I will have to die in front of a wall… but you are crazy?! (Letter published on 27/09/09)

22. My beautiful lake, to which I am very much attached, and to which I had even

dedicated years ago a poem, in dialect to better express my deep feelings for it, cannot disappear this way (Letter published on 27/09/09)

23. (…) A disaster from the cultural and emotional perspectives for who really cares for the lake. I feel more pain than indignation. (Letter published on 29/09/09)

24. Give us back the fabulous lakeshore of Como, which in difficult times like these, only with a little glimpse while driving past, brightens our mood! (Letter published on 26/09/09)

25. I am German and I have known the lake of Como for 20 years (...) To me and all of them [family and friends, from Italy and elsewhere] the lake has always had this strange effect: as soon as I arrive here I relax, I feel great, I breathe deeply and I forget the daily stress. This is due to a landscape of extraordinary beauty (Letter published on 4/10/09)

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