In some countries (Libya and China being the most remarkable examples) the central planning Authorities have seriously undertaken the design and building of complex systems of long-range hydraulic conduits (integrated by reservoirs and pumping stations where required by orographic circumstances) fulfilling the function of transferring natural hydraulic inflows from regions of excessive precipitations to arid or semi-arid zones. Such systems can be many hundreds of kilometres long (up to more than 1,000 km) and may cost in the range of tens of millions of Euros or of Dollars. Their technical and economic feasibility has just now begun to appear as conceivable, in the face of the growing value attributed to the resource "water" on one hand and of the advancing technology of large infrastructure building on the other hand. In Italy, CESI SpA, in the frame of a Research Program funded by the Italian Ministry of Industry to improve the electric system in Italy, has recently undertaken preliminary steps in order to carry out a pre-feasibility study concerning the possibility of creating a system of tunnels and reservoirs distributed along the Apennines mountain chain running along the long axis of the peninsula. Such a system, more than 1,000 km long and comprising about 60 small or medium-sized reservoirs for a total capacity of nearly 2,000 million cubic metres, would be able to catch the peak flood discharges of the Northern rivers, which cause annually very grievous floodings and landslides, and to transfer significant volumes of water to the Southern regions, which suffer on the average from severe summer droughts. The initial conception of this system assumes that both reservoirs and interconnecting tunnels will be situated at a constant altitude, thus creating a network of freely communicating vessels and hence dispensing with the necessity either of pumping stations or of regulating valves, in favour of the maximum simplicity of functioning and management of the system. Of course, in every study of this kind an in-depth, exhaustive analysis of the cost and benefit balance of the enterprise has to be carried out in parallel with the optimisation of layout as well as the appraisal of technical feasibility and of the options for financial planning. However, the growing scarcity and value of the water resources together with the increasingly damaging vagaries of the climate will probably force the planning Authorities to consider more and more seriously, in the near future, the possibility of creating such large infrastructures, in parallel with other equally extended networks already accepted – and indeed taken for granted- into the mainstream fabric of modern society (long-rang electric networks, oil and methane regional pipelines, communication networks…). The huge capital layout required should be distributed over a span of many years (about two decades) and in this way the yearly allocations would be of the same order of magnitude as the damages now incurred every year (on the average) as a consequence of the hydrological extremes. PUBBLICATO A5028494 (PAD – 663596)