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This chapter discusses the main research interests and outputs in the various branches of geography that have influenced the study of tourism from a geographical perspective. It argues that the idiographic tradition has been transversal throughout, leading to the growing interest for tourism within the geography academic community in the last 10 years. There is a focus on the birth of specific research groups, mainly related to a constellation of new university curricula on tourism and—with few exceptions of territorial tradition—to an intermittent availability of public research funds. The chapter concludes with a more general picture of the place of tourism within the geography discipline in Italy and of evolving trends in terms of research results, dissemination, and evaluation.

This study seeks to consider the recent evolution of the Italian policy in the field of marine protected areas (MPAs). In particular, it aims to point out the increasing role played by Italian regions in establishing and managing MPAs. This evolution is to be described by focusing attention on the North Adriatic case.

After a brief introduction on the legislative framework, points of weakness and strength of the Italian experience in the field of MPAs are discussed. Different initiatives for promoting and implementing an MPA strategy are analyzed through the North Adriatic case study, pointing out the increasing role played by the regions in the design and implementation of protection policies.

The analysis shows how regions direct greater attention to the involvement of the public and economic sector in the design and implementation of protection policies, and to the definition of more flexible management tools. This element clearly confirms the general and overall tendency towards more regional‐based forms of environmental policy, even in coastal and marine affairs. However, in order to improve the environmental gains and implement sustainable forms of economic development, these regional initiatives should be better linked to a more comprehensive coastal zone management framework, which is still lacking. From this perspective, a national strategy for the Italian coast system could strongly contribute to increasing the role and effectiveness of regional initiatives aimed at protecting coastal and marine ecosystems.

The North Adriatic case shows the growing need for integrated policies in different scale projects, enhancing the involvement of local communities toward their own territory.

The purpose of this paper is to present a case study, showing a local government's capacity in addressing energy consumptions and local greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions in its administration areas. This case demonstrates some strengths and weaknesses in the actions of local institutions to complement the national and European efforts in addressing climate change problems.

The paper starts by considering the need to address global changes by a multi‐level governance system, in line with the subsidiarity principle proposed by the European Commission for the implementation of its policies. According to this principle, different institutional levels should intervene through control and reduction of GHG emissions from their operational scale. In particular, this paper reports an ongoing activity of urban planning carried out by a local municipality of Northern Italy, Martellago (Venice Province), that has focused on the energy and GHG reduction as a priority.

The analysis identified some topics to be addressed by urban plans; their higher or lower effectiveness in respect to the climate change adaptation and mitigation needs; and some constraints to be addressed by an enforced integration of different administrative levels of governance.

This paper shows the importance of local planning in climate change issues, which is seldom considered, particularly in practice. In fact, while the elaboration of energy and urban plans is not mandatory for small municipalities, some voluntary actions – like for Martellago – show that their wide applications could contribute importantly to the efforts to decrease GHG emissions.

Landscape ecology represents an area of theoretical and empirical support of spatial planning, providing parameters such as heterogeneity, connectivity and fragmentation. The aim of this study was to use these parameters to evaluate the choices of a real planning tool to protect the biodiversity, to evaluate the applicability limits of concepts and methods used.

This was achieved by analysing the selected spatial indices and their dependency scale, and by the comparison of these results with regard to spatial biotic parameters estimations (birds and mammals).

The study confirmed the scale's effect on the indices, unstable at the adopted resolution for extensions up to 6,000‐7,000 meters. The selected indices permitted appreciation of the low effectiveness of the real planning tool in improving conservation of biodiversity. The paper suggests that empirical studies and predictive knowledge at different scales are urgent in this field. To preserve biodiversity, the choices of planning scale should primarily comply with the spatial needs of the various species.

Evaluates a real planning tool to protect biodiversity.

Tanneries present heavy environmental impacts due to air emissions. Specific quality objectives are fixed by European Directives concerning air and, in particular, volatile organic compounds. The purpose of this paper is to present a proposal for the management of air emissions with a view to achieve quality standards in the Italy's largest tannery district by means of a tradable emissions permits (TEPs) system.

A methodological approach is presented and analysed. The proposed system is based on the “bubble” configuration, which appears to be an effective and feasible application based on the total maximum daily load criterion, supported by the air quality standards or the environmental risk assessment (ERA) procedure.

The TEP system favours technological improvements in the reduction of emissions. The system may not provide a solution to the unpleasant odours deriving from the tanneries, but its application supported by ERA will make it possible to define the admissible levels of air pollution and improve the general state of air quality.

Although the study is not exhaustive and requires further investigation in the economic, legal, administrative and air pollution sectors, it does give the basic elements for a preliminary analysis. The evident lack of experimental data concerning weather and climatic features, intrinsic to exposure assessment, has been pointed out.

This study proposes a methodological pathway aimed at defining the system of tradable permits by verifying the existence and availability of the necessary data. The proposed TEP system can be extended to other homogeneous industrial districts with an appropriate selection of one or more critical parameters.