Italian seas and lakes, 34% are outlawed for pollution

Pollution, poor purification and the climate crisis are increasingly threatening Italian seas and lakes. The final balance sheet of Legambiente's summer campaigns - Goletta Verde and Goletta dei Laghi 2025 - provides a summary snapshot. In summer 2025, out of 388 samplings carried out in coastal and lake waters in 19 regions, 34% were found to be over the legal limits, i.e. 1 sample in 3. The assessment was made today, Tuesday 12 August, in Rome by the environmental association. The state of health of the sea is worrying, with one polluted spot every 80 km and an average surface water temperature in the Mediterranean of 25.4°C in June and July, the hottest since 2016.

According to Legambiente, it is "urgent to approve a national plan for the protection of coastal and inland waters, to provide more resources to modernise purification plants, more controls by Regions, Arpa and Municipalities on critical points, and better management of inland waters. Urgently allocate economic resources to infrastructure the ports of Taranto and Augusta for offshore wind energy logistics'.

Once again this year, river mouths, canals and watercourses flowing into the sea or into the lake proved to be critical points: 54% of the critical points analysed (101 out of 188) were found to be polluted or heavily polluted. The situation is better for samples taken directly into the sea or lake water, i.e. in areas far from mouths or discharges, where only 15% of the points sampled were found to be over the legal limits (30 out of 200). On the issue of sea mouths, Legambiente denounces that 56% of those monitored by Goletta Verde, which are not monitored by the competent authorities and are therefore not suitable for bathing, are found to have a public beach nearby. This is a worrying figure if we consider that more than 220 km of sandy coastline to date are not monitored by the competent authorities (out of the 3,346 km of low coastline), i.e. 6.6%, and the few free beaches left in the Peninsula, especially in some regions.

Currently in Italy, 4.4% of the pollutant load generated by more than 78 million population equivalents is either not connected (0.7%) or is treated with individual systems (for 3.7%). We are talking about a load of almost 3.5 million population equivalents that is not treated safely (with secondary or higher treatment systems). To these must be added the loads that flow to treatment plants that are currently in the infringement procedure with respect to the requirements of the Wastewater Directive, which, from the updates easily available on the Mase website, amount to 855 agglomerations, relating to more than 26.8 million population equivalent, which corresponds to 34% of the total load generated in Italy. Let us not forget, Legambiente points out, that Italy is subject to four infringement procedures for non-compliance with the Waste Water Directive (91/271/EEC). The last one (2017/2181) is still at the preliminary investigation stage, the first three have already resulted in a conviction, and in particular the first one, dating back to 2004, went as far as a fine. To date, according to the Court of Auditors, more than EUR 210 million has been paid just for the fine resulting from the first infringement procedure, while the Court of Justice's ruling for the second infringement came in March 2025 and the fine amounts to EUR 10 million plus a penalty of more than EUR 13.5 million for every 6 months of delay in bringing the plants up to standard.

Of 263 points sampled along the more than 7,500 km of Italian coastline, 8% were found to be polluted and 27% heavily polluted. The main problems occurred at the mouths of rivers, where 58% of the analyses (69 out of 119) were negative and found to be polluted (15) or heavily polluted (54). It is striking that 71% of the mouths monitored in the Goletta Verde campaign (85 out of 119) correspond to stretches of coastline not sampled by the competent authorities, and of these as many as 47 were found to be over the legal limits.