The coastal port landscape: new opportunities for tourism and challenges for clean energy

Abstract

The manuscript proposes some issues concerning the status of coastal port landscapes, suggesting new opportunities for development and new challenges for clean energy, and linking the increase in the competitiveness of the port and interport system to the strengthening of infrastructures and to the adaptation of the best energy standards. The manuscript proposes a review of some projects on coastal territories, Dutch and Italian, selected for their degree of innovation and for their synergy compared to strategic-territorial tools characterized by positive urban impacts. In particular it is illustrated some experiences on coastal territories, in particular those affecting the coastal of Rotterdam with related implementations for onshore power supply and those related to the new regional plan for the tourist ports of the Lazio region. Specifically, is presented the Vision 2030 for the port of Rotterdam, the Maasvlakte II project and the new plan of Lazio’s touristic ports. The Harbor project is an infrastructural, transport and productive project that must take into account - also due to the strong impact in landscape/environmental terms - a strategic/territorial value to offset any “collateral” effects: it must activate new opportunities for tourism development and face new challenges to produce more energy from renewable sources (Rotterdam is an example). it must become the privileged interface of transport networks, improving intermodal connections and becoming a place of commercial exchange with a strong potential for growth and tourist attraction. The tourist ports are also contained in the perspective of Vision 2030: the Dutch and Italian case studies summarize the issues: Rotterdam’s case study is significant for the strategic vision of development to be performed passing through the control of environmental performance; the Lazio’s case study proposes a vision of transcalar development, to be pursued through the idea of a system. According to the two joint visions, the port must be reconfigured as a strategic node of the territorial system and an active part of a process of energy/environmental efficiency. It must also be appropriately framed within new spatial planning tools that provide for and optimize the relationship between coastal and maritime infrastructures and the urban and tourist landscape.