This special issue, through various contributions from distinguished scholars in the field, attempts if not to provide exhaustive answers then at least to delineate the perimeter of the issues and scientifically circumscribe the contours of the questions that still exist regarding smart cities. Specifically, the ambition of this special issue is to fuel a multidisciplinary debate on the role of cities—especially innovative ones—in the ongoing (sustainable digital energy) transition processes. The contributions in this special issue will certainly stimulate an exchange of ideas and perspectives on this topic.

Urban landscape and tourism, a complementary binomial or a dual antithesis? The question is becoming more and more interesting, and it is a cause of concern among local administrators. To this end, we aim to investigate the dynamics of a specific case, the city of Naples (Italy), where the fast, increasing touristification of the historic city center - a phenomenon for which the expression "overtourism" is increasingly used – is now showing the other side of the coin. Through an interpretivist-constructivist epistemological approach based on the analysis of the context, the critical issues relating to an uncontrolled management of urban space are first brought to light and then some strategies and public policies that could prove effective in containing the phenomenon are proposed. Finally, the results found for the specific case of Naples are described in inductive terms to be replicable in similar contexts.

This paper examines the transboundary water resources conflict resolution mechanisms. Although different research perspectives, including social planner, water market, game theory, static and dynamic systems engineering model, have already provided conflict resolution mechanisms that could be used to analyze transboundary water conflicts, here an ecosystemic approach based on an analytical model, is proposed. For this aim the case of GERD "Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam" on Nile Azzurro, is analyzed. The scenario of the GERD dam, besides being current and interesting in the water dispute between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, is suitable for the application of the proposed analytical model. This model could permit researchers and practitioners to develop more comprehensive mechanisms, complementary to political strategies, with stronger analytical capacity to analyze the different elements of the process of transboundary water dispute resolution.

In recent months, the COVID-19 pandemic has been fervently considered from the perspective of various disciplines in the scientific community. Many of the proposed approaches are tied to reflections on the imminent and future effects of the pandemic. This contribution begins with a study of the recent past in Italy, analyzing the hurdles in politics that came to light due to the wave of COVID-19 infections worldwide. Particularly, the research considers the criticality of the geographical scale of reference in Italy's political actions. COVID-19 induced a need for the government to interact with people locally, especially through small municipalities in geographically central, inner areas, is emphasized. The main aim of this research is to attribute to this specific COVID-19 disaster the instrumental role of turning on the lights on the need to intervene in the inner areas of Italy, often very neglected. So the focus of the work is on inner areas and the probable catalysis of the political management dynamics that concern them, as an effect of the COVID's impacts. The pandemic is, therefore, only the contingent phenomenon which, in this case, can perhaps accelerate political interventions in inner areas. To explain the reason for this, we show how the vulnerability of inner areas, already generally risky, has become one of the weak links in the chain of protection from COVID-19 in terms of a geographical scattering phenomenon.