Water Resources of Italy

Abstract

Due to its geographical position, Italy denotes great meteorological variability from one Region to the other, which affects the availability of natural water resources. The main rivers and the largest lakes are located in the northern and central parts of the Country. A discrepancy characterises also the availability of groundwater, which is conditioned by the variable geological pattern of the Italian territory. An evaluation of water resources is based on the available data collected during a long sequence of years by the responsible structures belonging to the central Government and the Regional administrations. More recent data, focusing on the hydrological balances in selected zones of the country, allows the potential and the usable resource to be evaluated. For the present time, the current withdrawal meets principally the urban and domestic demand, but other fundamental sectors, like agriculture, industry and electric energy generation, request large amounts of water, which often gives rise to undesirable conflicts among users. A widespread discharge of polluted wastewater is now responsible of the low quality level of some receiving surface and underground bodies, reducing the amount of usable resources. An intensive activity is in progress to achieve the ecological standards imposed by the European Union on wastewater by means of treatment plants and to guarantee the ecological flows in the watercourses. Unconventional resources, like desalinated sea and brackish water and treated urban and industrial wastewater, contribute to increasing the availability of usable water. Recycling treated wastewater can be a promising solution for reducing freshwater demand. Some assumptions on climate change have been considered, which could affect the availability of water resources in the various Regions of the Country.