Lazio leads the new wave of investment

Much Lazio, but also Piedmont, Lombardia, Toscana, Puglia and Sicilia. These are the regions where the ten most important works financed by the NRP and currently being tested are concentrated. Prominent among these are the modernisation and securing of the Peschiera river, in the province of Rieti, and the workson the metropolitan networks in Rome (implementing party Acea Ato 2, five different lots for over 550 million euro), the Valle Orco aqueduct in Piedmont (implementing entity Smat, with funds of 235 million), the reduction of water losses in the Florentine (Publiacqua, 91 million) and Milanese networks, in addition to network replacement and the installation of smart meters (Cap Holding, 79.4 million). This is followed by work on the Fortore-Locone-Ofanto interconnection in Puglia (Acquedotto Pugliese, EUR 97 million) and on the Pietrarossa dam in Sicily (Region of Sicily, EUR 82 million).

What priorities should be set in order to make the national water sector more resilient in the next 10-20 years, also in light of climate trends and emerging needs to protect the resource? "The priority is the ability to plan and invest in structural modernisation interventions, accelerating the digitalisation of networks and the integrated management of the resource," emphasises Lorenzo Di Matteo, economist at Ref Ricerche. "We need to focus on industrial players, strengthen governance and partnerships between territories, and put resilience against droughts, floods and climate change at the centre. Only a national direction and a long-term vision can make the difference, overcoming the logic of fragmented management'.

In addition to the realisation of the necessary infrastructure for the country, the challenges for the future, which are part of a new paradigm of water service, are the extension of depuration to municipalities below one thousand inhabitants, water safety plans to prevent contamination, treatments to remove micropollutants in medicines and cosmetics, and then the energy neutrality of purification and the recovery of energy and phosphorus from sludge. 'To act across the board, a permanent public programme is needed. Once the Pnrr chapter is closed, we will need over two billion euros of investment per year to give continuity to what was started with the Pnrr and which will keep us busy for the next ten, twenty years. These are sums that cannot be charged to the water tariff alone,' Di Matteo concludes.