WATER POLICIES AND ISSUES.AN INTERNATIONAL APPROACH

PROCEEDINGS OF THE XIV EUROPEAN SEMINARON GEOGRAPHY OF WATER

Environmental Conflicts and Sustainable Water Policies

in the Mediterranean Region Edited by Andrea CORSALEMonica IORIOGiovanni SISTU

CUEC Editrice eBook pubblicato con il contributo di:Provincia di Cagliari / Provincia de CastedduAssessorato Sviluppo Economico, Attività Produttive e TurismoUniversità degli Studi di CagliariDipartimento di Scienze Sociali e delle Istituzioni University Press / Geographia 9 ISBN: 978 88 8467 822 5PROCEEDINGS OF THE XIV EUROPEAN SEMINAR ON GEOGRAPHY OF WATERAtti XIV Seminario Europeo di Geografia dell’Acqua © 2013CUEC EditricePrima edizione digitale maggio 2013 Realizzazione editoriale: CUEC Editriceby Sardegna Novamedia Soc. Coop.Via Basilicata n. 57/59 - 09127 Cagliari www.cuec.euinfo@cuec.eu

CONTENTS FOREWORDPierpaolo Faggi EDUCATIONAL METHODS AND CASE STUDIESAndrea Corsale, The XIV European Seminar on Geography of Water. Introduction and Methods KEYWORD LECTURESRaffaele Cattedra, Ten topics about Human Mediterranean’s Geographie(s)Frédéric Lasserre,Water Conflicts, Civil Wars Above All PROPOSALS FROM THE WORKING GROUPSMonica Casu, Bilal Paladini San Martín, Sirle Trestip, Environmental conflicts and territorialplanning in wetlands. The case of the Molentargius – Saline Regional ParkBranimir Vukosav, Ante Blaće, Robert Lončarić, Sustainable water policies in tourist areas: thecase of VillasimiusLara Burigo, Dana Kučerová, Filippo Menga, Workshop report. Facing climate change anddesertification: the case of the network of reservoirs in inner Sardinia RESEARCH ACTIVITIES OF THE PARTICIPANT UNIVERSITIES UNIVERSITY OF CAGLIARIMonica Casu, Water conflicts at Porto Torres Industrial Zone (NW Sardinia)Filippo Menga, Water agreements in Central Asia: an overview UNIVERSITY OF MUNICHMario Kuttruff, Mark Vetter, Sustainability by bioenergy – opportunities and risks on the exampleof the municipality of Bräunlingen in the southern Black ForestMark Vetter, Estimating lake ecological future under climate change – the LAGO-ProjectapproachStefan Weinberger, Mark Vetter, Hydrodynamic and ecological modeling to improve theunderstanding of climate change impacts on the water quality of lakes and reservoirsRosa Wilm, Mark Vetter, Analysis of the evolution of the thalweg of arroyos based on aerialimages in the Doñana Natural Park, SW Spain UNIVERSITY OF PADUAGiovanni Donadelli, Education and teachers’ beliefs impacts on climate changesSilvia Piovan, Examples of an interdisciplinary approach: case studies from Late Holocene man-environment interaction in the Adige-Po plain (Italy) UNIVERSITY OF PÉCS

Levente Ronczyk, Using Remote Sensing data for mapping Urban LandscapeGabriella Tóth, The estimation of the sewage works operating on the Tési plateau’s uncoveredkarstZoltan Wilhelm, A Natural Resource and Cultural Heritage in India UNIVERSITY OF PRAGUEDana Kučerová, Michal Jeníček, Comparison of interpolation methods for estimating the spatialdistribution of the snowpack UNIVERSITY OF SEVILLEBelen Pedregal, Quim Brugué, Leandro Del Moral, Alba Ballester, Josep Espluga, Graciela Ferrer,Nuria Hernández-Mora, Abel La Calle, Francesc La Roca, Marc Parés, Deliberative democracy andwater policy: public participation in water resources planning in SpainMaría C. Villarín Clavería, Sergio Segura Calero, Factors that influence the urban - domesticwater consumption. Municipality of Seville UNIVERSITY OF SOFIAPanka Babukova,Access to fresh surface water under climate change (case study Black Sea WaterManagement District, Bulgaria)Daniela Zlatunova,A Bulgarian approach for preliminary flood risk assessment UNIVERSITY OF UDINEAlice Barattin, Cona Island: a project of reclamation between the river and the seaLara Burigo, The River Piave: past and present uses towards sustainability LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

EDUCATION AND TEACHERS’ BELIEFS IMPACTS ON CLIMATECHANGES

Giovanni DonadelliDepartment of Historical Geographical and Antiquity Sciences, University of Padova - ITALY

Introduction The attention to the causes and the effects of Global Changes is shared on a worldwide scale andnowadays it represents a much-discussed topic in many different disciplinary fields (economy,geography, science, etc.). Within the discussions related to climate changes, particular success hasbeen given to the sustainable development concept (Brundtland 1987; United Nation 1992) asphilosophy and potential collective action strategy in order to actively face climate changes(European Union Council 2001, 2010; UNESCO 2005a). In fact, it was demonstrated that theanthropic activity is one of the main causes contributing to the Earth’s temperature rise (United Nation1994). From the outset, this awareness supported the necessity of a worldwide comparison enablingsuch discussion to become unanimously recognized as important and contingent. One of the strategiesimmediately put into effect in this direction, on an international political scale, concerns therealization by the United Nations of a programme directly focused on the Education for theSustainable Development (ESD) 66. Completely agreeing with this policy, the InternationalGeographical Union revised the 1992 International Charter on Geographical Education (IGU-CGE1992) focusing on the geographical point of view on Sustainable Development and releasing in 2007the Lucerne Declaration on Geographical Education for Sustainable Development (Hartwig, Sibylle,Yvonne 2007). This choice arose from the consciousness that it was necessary to advance (and,therefore, to start) political action through a wide educational action of raising awareness, ondifferent levels and scales, that would allow the next generations to know the future scenarios withwhich they would have to deal. This worldwide action reveals the far-sightedness of those whounderstood the necessity to question some choices that are still nowadays at the basis of our consumersociety. To pursue an unlimited economic rise in a reality where resources are limited is worthy of adeluded (Boulding, 1992) since the boost to progress and to consumption of territory and energieswill not disregard the availability of them. On the contrary, the disillusioned one is the one whosensed the importance to live in harmony with his own planet and shared the awareness to act inorder to contain the impact of his actions on the Earth. The sustainable acting is the result of apersonal revision of the impulses rather than a formal educational action and it is guided by a strongawareness of one's "power" and "duty" as a world citizen. To recognize ourselves as importantactors, able to change things, is the starting point to promote an education based on jointresponsibility and awareness. The advised goal is to be the change you want to see in the world,conscious that education is a slow-moving process based on small steps. Changing one's own habits and ideas is not easy but that does not mean it is impossible or it is notworth trying. It is merely necessary to realize where to start. Experiences, access to information andreflection can represent an excellent starting point as key elements that positively influence the

educational processes leading to personal growth and to consciousness raising for themselves asactors free to write their future. The institution assigned by the society a privileged place for theeducation of its own citizens is the school, including those figures to whom, indeed, educational andformative action is delegated: teachers. The importance of their role has always found feedback inpedagogy, from Rosseau's "Emilio" to talks given by Sir Ken Robinson at TED67.The proficiencies and the ability to get in touch with young people are elements that make a teacher aneducator (Gordon 2003). In fact, it is also with his lessons and through the motivation he proposesthat the new generations discover the world, grow up and learn to take it to heart. Therefore, teachers'responsibility is great but too often it is perceived by them as an anxiety or a duty (I must teach this, Imust propose that) rather than an occasion of pride and professional and personal satisfaction. Theteacher does not trust that one of his successes could change the world, instead, educating the studentsas aware citizens could trigger a changing chain of practices and reflections that could really concidewith a future change in this consumption society.

Survey on the importance of teachers' beliefs If we agree on identifying the teacher as the key figure since he acts like a mediator between thecurrent society and the next generations, we recognize that the primary school teacher, as firstexclusive teacher, has a great responsibility. In particular, if we refer to the climate changes topicand, therefore, to the educational practices linked to sustainability, awareness and information, theteacher's personal view on these themes is far from an indifferent element. Upon this topic reflectedLorena Rocca, Sonia Ziliotto and Giovanni Donadelli, from the Geography Department of theUniversity of Padua, within a research inquiring into three different school contexts: Italy's 68,Germany's 69 and Brazil's 70 one.The hypothesis of the analysis was to investigate and highlight the possible connections between theteachers' beliefs personal system (Pajares 1992; Boscolo 1997) and their personal style in teachinggeography. The survey was conceived by Professor Lorena Rocca in 2007 with the purpose to castlight on teachers' beliefs system regarding geography and, after several following modifications, itwas enriched with the intention to monitor and bring out continuity and discontinuity elementsbetween teacher's perceptions and the strategies he applies in teaching geography (Rocca 2007). Thefirst difficulty the survey had to face was the realization of an instrument suitable to enable teachers toreflect upon their own geographical past experiences and their professional ones connected to thediscipline teaching. A second difficulty was then to arrange the information collected bringing upteachers' beliefs system referring to a particular paradigm of the geographical concept. The firstproblem was solved creating the survey instrument from the survey model SERVQUAL. It is apractical method conceived by Zethaml, Parasuraman and Berry, developed to manage the enterprisesand services quality from the assumption that, being the services tangible goods, only the customercan judge their quality (Zeithaml, Parasuraman, Berry 2000). In order to detect the more relevantquestions to present, an essential biographical research was conducted to focus on what were,according to the experts in geography didactics, the sensible points of the discipline (Rocca 2007).Instead, with regard to the organization of the information collected by the teachers, the analysisselected, as starting point, Guba and Lincoln's thought (Guba 1990; Lincoln, Guba 1985), accordingto which, beliefs possess a threefold nature. These three dimensions of the beliefs, inflected ingeographical terms by Lorena Rocca (Rocca 2007, 2010), are the epistemological dimension, linkedto the geographical knowledge evolution, the ontological dimension, referring to the personal

"geographical past experience" and the methodological one, that is the disciplinary didactics practice.Ultimately, teachers' beliefs systems were made visible, setting them within the paradigmatic view ofthe geographical concept development71 proposed by Horatio Capel (Capel 1987). The results of theresearch (presented at the EUROGEO European Conference in Athens) confirm the hypothesis of astrong connection between the personal lived experiences and one's own personal beliefs system that,in turn, affects geography teachers' choice to use certain teaching strategies rather than others.Therefore, the survey emphasizes the fact that it is necessary to reflect on the teacher's personalexperience as a key element for the understanding of his personal teaching style.

Teachers’ ideas about geography aims Among the data collected in the survey previously presented72, it is possible to detect severalfunctional items to explicit the relation that teachers glimpse between the geographical discipline andthe climate changes topic. In particular, the teachers were asked to choose five answers among twentypossible ones to the question "In your opinion, what is geography useful for?". The diagram (Figure1) shows the percentage of choices obtained from those items linking geography to the citizens'awareness increase, the sustainable development education, the promotion of environmentaleducation and the understanding of actuality. The image, emerging from the analysis of the choicesgiven by primary school teachers, brings to light some important differences between the Brazilianteachers and the Italian ones. In Brazil geography is considered much more vivid and dynamic. It isconsidered an important discipline to promote sustainable development and to contribute to theconstruction of a responsible citizenship also thanks to the capacity to recognize and solve currentproblems. On the contrary, in Italy, geography seems to be perceived as a discipline banallyassociated to the ability to ask and answer questions. The image standing out is a static discipline, asort of "Zombie Geography" (Pugh 2009), since it is not that much linked to the students' everyday lifeand future. Concerning the pre-school teachers, instead, the teachers from the two countries seem toagree on defining geography useful to understand actuality also through an environmental educationconnected to one's own territory. These results require a reflection. We can not be under the illusionthat the teachers from Veneto may be able to propose activities, discussions and reflections onclimate changes leading their students to become aware of the real impact they could have in theirfuture as citizens. If a teacher considers geography static and not forward-looking, how can hemotivate his students to study it? There is an evident gap between teachers' geographical idea and theconcrete challenges to which it is instead called to contribute. If teachers themselves do not realizethe great importance of the discipline they teach and the infinite positive effects this could have in thecommunity life, it is not logical to think their students manage to do it.

Figure 1 – Teachers’ answers to the question: “What is geography useful for?” (in percentage).

Conclusions

At this point, instinctively, one might point the finger at the teacher as the solely responsible for thissituation, but it would be wrong. The teacher has his own responsibility but it is not putting the wholeweight of the formative action on his shoulders that we succeed in solving or improving the currentsituation. The capacity and the importance to be able to look towards the future are goals that cannotbe merely delegated to the teachers, therefore, whoever concerned, because of work or passion, inthemes connected to climate changes and to the sustainable development should feel involved andtake part in the educational action in one of the many possible ways. To propose formativeopportunities and to share potentially interesting information and materials through the teacher's workcould be quite enough. Often, in fact, the teacher has not the proficiency, the time or the motivatingforce to look for information in addition to those provided in the textbook (and this is wheregeography loses its power). Whenever an important survey on pedagogical and geographical themesis published, a copy of it (hopefully adapted in the contents and the form) should be delivered to theteachers, as they are real frontline men and women in this society that wants to be based onknowledge (UNESCO 2005b), but that sometimes finds difficulty in assuring everyone the access toinformation and the instruments needed to orient oneself in it. To preclude teachers from knowledgemeans to preclude next generations from it.If on one side, therefore, it is important to stress the fact that teacher's personal experience influenceshis teaching style, on the other side it is necessary to reiterate that the teacher and the school concur toeducate future generations but should not and cannot be left alone in this hard task. The academic andpolitical circles, in particular, should take into more account those who deal with didactics (at everylevel) since culture cannot be considered as such if it remains prerogative of a few. Everyone withhis own possibilities, to conclude, should promote a geographical education able, on one side, tomotivate and approach students to the great actuality themes such as climate changes and, on the other,to instill in them a kind of "divine discontent" so that they do not accept things as they are. Only bydoing so, next generations will manage to experience their own planet as their own home.

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