• co-production
• collaborative governance
• communication
• data
• digital transformation
• digitalisation
• digitisation
• environmental preservation
• hydraulic risk
• hydrogeological instability
• land and water management
• participatory approach
• rural area
• SDGs
• social and economic impacts
• sustainable digitalisation
• technology

In this thesis, we argue that digital transformation has changed the organisation of water and land management at the local level, improving communication and data exchange between the actors involved in the ordinary land management process and generating social, economic and environmental impacts, challenges and opportunities, winners and losers within local communities that risk suffering the effects of hydrogeological instability in some particularly sensitive areas, such as marginal rural areas. In the framework of the DESIRA H2020 project (Digitalization: Economic and Social Impacts in Rural Areas), a living lab was organised around the work of a local public authority operating in the northern area of Tuscany, Italy, dealing with the control of the territory to keep the population and local infrastructures safe. In this district, several actors are involved in monitoring activities through a participatory approach to implement the collaborative governance of the reclamation activities plan and in the co-production of environmental services by farmers who can provide their mechanical equipment and labour in such maintenance works. The coordination requires mutual interation, which implies channels of communication and data flow facilitated by using different digital technologies. The impacts resulting from the digitalisation of this process affect all activities and entities involved and contribute positively to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, in which digitalisation for the prevention of the effects of climate change is also included. The first part of this thesis consists of a presentation of the theoretical background (Chapter 1), a description of the general methodology followed (Chapter 2) and a systematic literature review aimed at assessing case studies within rural areas in which digital technology played a role in facilitating communication and data exchange between different actors (Chapter 3). In the second part, the new contents resulting from the research activities carried out within the living lab “Northern Tuscany (IT)” are presented, starting with an analysis of the context in which the research is focused (Chapter 4) and continuing with the modelling of the socio-cyber-physical system of the case study (Chapter 5), and the assessment of needs, present and past impacts and expectations of digitalisation (Chapter 6), leading through an exploratory scenario analysis aimed at assessing the future of digitalisation (Chapter 7) to the designing and development of a tailor-made technological solution (Chapter 8) and the presentation of a set of policy proposals to promote sustainable digitalisation (Chapter 9).