The mitigation of social and environmental impact of large infrastructures demands ever more comprehensive and integrated strategies that have to be based both on the knowledge of actual data and on the reality perceived by the stakeholders affected by the presence of these impacting systems. In developed countries, whereas for negative externalities the activity of dam owners is fully acknowledged, transparent, and measurable, positive externalities tend to be only partly appreciated.

Indeed, the evaluation of the costs borne by dam owners is not, in general, matched by a similar evaluation of the corresponding benefits for the stakeholders. The paper presents the activity performed by ITCOLD, the Italian Committee on Large Dams, to assess how dam owners’ actions addressed to the sustainable development of the host territories are perceived by the other stakeholders. The activities cover two complementary aspects. From one side, the pro-activity of dam owners has been highlighted by means of the feeding of a questionnaire, based on a model organized in three macro-fields: environmental management actions; promotion of local development; transfer of water and money resources to the host territory.

From the other side, the assessment of the stakeholders’ point of view has been duly taken into account in the frame of Workshops, organized on different territories, that have allowed the direct confrontation with the dam owners. The analysis of data has provided a sketch of the state of interaction between dam owners and the multifarious world of stakeholders. The main aim of the ITCOLD activity is to facilitate the dialogue and the inter-communication between two worlds that have conflictual and often opposite interests. This approach could be profitably proposed in developing countries as well.