OILANDSCAPES. Coupling ecological and social dimensions with oil infrastructures in Adriatic-Ionian region

The aim of the paper is to explore the potential of oil industry landscapes if ‘coupled’ with new socio-ecologic realms, for the definition of a innovative local development processes. It will lead the reader in understanding, firstly, the conceptual transition from previous ‘oil infrastructures’ to ‘oil meshes’, necessary to set the analytical and designing scale of our proposed OILANDSCAPES. Starting from the assumption that ‘oil infrastructures’ have always played an important role in the definition of the stratified territorial morphology and that can be considered as cultural heritage because of their socio-cultural values, in the first part the paper focuses on the definition of three kinds of oil landscapes: upstream, midstream and downstream landscapes. Then, it leads the reader’s attention on ‘oil infrastructures’ concept which is tightly related to an engineering approach in territorial planning. In the second part, the paper wants to introduce the suggested transition from ‘oil infrastructures’ to ‘oil meshes’ concept, supporting the idea that these three kinds of landscape have to be studied as a unique realm, so enlarging our point of view towards the territorial scale. After, the paper introduces the two current issues which are differently affecting oil industry on the Western coasts of Adrion region and on the Eastern ones: the crisis of the downstream sector in the first case, and the increasing in exploration and production oil activities in the second one. The effects of these local and regional dynamics will influence the territorial ‘oil meshes’ in their entirety. Therefore, ‘oil meshes’ are questioned to be responsive to a de-engineering reconversion process in one case and to be sensitive to innovative planning tools in the other one. In the third part, two case studies, representative of the opposite outlined current trends, are identified thanks to their concentration of oil infrastructures: the South-Eastern Sicilian oil district (Gela-Ragusa- Syracuse) in Italy and the Myzeqe plain oil district (Fier-Patos-Marinza-Ballsh-Kucova) in Albania. The two oil regions, defined by a 130x130 km area, are comparatively analysed thanks to some thematic GIS cartographies. In the conclusion the paper evokes the socio- ecologic potential for local development processes of our shaped ‘oil meshes’ in defining new urban and ecologic centralities. Some results of the IDAUP PhD workshop in Tirana have been taken as examples to briefly sketch how we could imagine new possible scenarios for ‘oil meshes’ only coupling them with socio-ecologic territorial strategic vision. In this sense the paper proposes to ‘explore the new domain of OILANDSCAPES’.