Aspetti geografici dell’ampliamento del Canale di Panama

After describing the steps that led to the construction of the Panama Canal, the costs of its construction were highlighted – in environmental, economic and political terms, with the formation of the Panamanian State and its troubled historical events – and the benefits that the work has brought to the international maritime traffic and the economy of the Central American country: the recent expansion of the waterway, completed in 2016 and necessary for the constant and rapid dimensional growth of the ships at world scale, has re-proposed a series of problems that are not easy to solve with regard to the environmental impact caused by excavation works and by the transit of large tonnage vessels (among other things contributing to the long-standing debate on human-environmental relations that has characterized the history of contemporary geography). Moreover, the quite controversial times and methods with which the restructuring was completed raise serious doubts about its actual usefulness and profitability in the present and in the next years.