In 1996, the municipality of Taranto started a participation in a EU-funded project together with other four European coastal cities, called 'Posidonia', from the name of an aquatic plant Iiving in the sea near those cities. The project aimed at revitalising the social, economic and natural environment of the four urban areas through conservation and sustainable use of local resources. In particular, the Taranto Atelier tried to prepare an integrated-resource planning effort, using a participatory and multi-disciplinary approach based on the involvement of an expert and non-expert knowledge base. The target area was the Mar Piccolo, a lagoon surrounded by an extensive presence of wetlands, ancient buildings and historical ruins, but also by a consolidated urban zone, hanging on the whole area as an input for speculative developers. The area is also heavily polluted by different kinds of effluents, such as urban and industrial dumping and dirty drainage from a huge military dockyard.