Drought and water losses from the network: four steps to overcome the emergency

On the one hand, the drought emergency that is affecting, in particular, the centre-south and the islands and that has split Italy in two. On the other, a series of critical issues, closely linked to the serious water crisis, despite the great strides made thanks to industrial management and the work of Arera (the Authority for Energy, Networks and the Environment), which has ensured the stability of the system and the growth of investments.But there are still many margins for improvement, as shown by the check on the health of water contained in the Authority's latest Annual Report where, just to cite the most significant passage, the value of water losses will average 41.8% in 2023 at a national level, with lower levels in the North and higher in the South, which also records the greatest interruptions to service (227 hours a year against a national average of 59 hours).

Of course, there are also physiological factors that explain these differences. But it is clear that a large part of these numbers is attributable to pipelines and plants that are too old, especially in the South. Here, municipal 'economic' management (1,465 in total, 80% of which is in the south, with average investments of EUR 11 per inhabitant, compared to a national 'threshold' of EUR 70) is more important than industrial management, which is associated with significant development plans.

There remains, therefore, a deep gap in terms of investment capacity between industrial and municipal entities in the economy, exacerbated by management fragmentation. This is why Utilitalia, the federation of companies to which the public services of water, environment and energy are entrusted and which represents more than 400 companies covering 86% of the Italian population in the water sector alone, has taken pen and paper to call for the establishment of a national crisis table and to submit a four-point proposal for reform of the water sector to the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni. The objective: to bring the quota of investments per inhabitant to 100 euros per year and to reduce the number of medium/large-sized managers present in the territory (which today are 1,800) to 100.

"To best counteract the effects of climate change on water resources, we must move away from emergency logic. In the last ten years, investments have risen by 94% to 4 billion annually. On the network losses front, on which we are recovering the legacy of many decades of insufficient investments, planned investments stand at 27%, leading the priorities in sector planning compared to all other indicators monitored by Arera. But now further acceleration is needed,' explains Utilitalia vice-president with responsibility for water, Barbara Marinali, to Il Sole 24 Ore. Acceleration that, according to what Utilitalia writes in the letter sent to the premier together with the reform proposal, "is unthinkable without an intervention of all the subjects, including institutional, involved".

The plan, as the vice-president further clarifies, 'aims at reducing fragmentation, introducing management verification parameters, industrial consolidation of the sector, and an integrated approach between the different uses of water. In this way we count on raising the level of investment from the current 4 billion to 6 billion per year,' which is the sector's need estimated by the association. But this is not enough, Marinali points out, 'because, in order to secure the system, an effort must be made by the government, which has already shown signs of great attention and willingness to systematically address water issues. Only long-term public support action can in fact allow investments of this magnitude to be made'. An action that, for Utilitalia, must be translated into a structural allocation in the manoeuvre. Which Marinali quantifies 'in at least 1 billion euros per year for the next ten years. It is clear, in fact, that the works necessary for the entire national water system cannot be solely borne by tariffs (which claim 4 billion a year in investments, ed.). This will allow for the implementation of an extraordinary plan of interventions aimed at ensuring the protection of the resource and guaranteeing supply even in periods of increasing climatic stress'.