The study

Italy virtuous for water quality and potability: 85% comes from underground

Italy ranks sixth among the most virtuous countries in Europe, according to data compiled by Teha and released during the sixth edition of Community Valore Acqua

by Davide Madeddu

7 October 2024

ACQUA CORRENTE POTABILE CONSUMI DOMESTICI RUBINETTO RUBINETTI CONSUMO SPRECO

4' min read

Key points

Water and Health
From Valle d'Aosta to Basilicata
The State of the Rivers and Seas
Some improvement there
Security Studies
The Other Frontier

4' min read

Quality and potability. And that added value, guaranteed by underground sources that have a protective function on water itself. Factors that mitigate the impact on health, and make Italy rank, by gaining the sixth position, among the most virtuous countries in Europe. According to data processed by Teha and released during the sixth edition of the Community Valore Acqua per l'Italia (Water Value for Italy), which includes 42 companies and institutions in the extended water supply chain, the amount of time Italians are deprived of good health due to poor hygiene and water quality is 9.4 years per 100,000 inhabitants, against a continental average of 16 years. However, this figure is higher than in Finland, where the average falls to 5.5 years. A calculation, as the promoters point out, "the result of an analysis carried out by the institute for health metrics and evaluation as part of the Global Burden of Disease study".

Water and Health

'Water plays a fundamental role in the health of the population,' says Valerio De Molli, Managing Partner and Ceo of The European House Ambrosetti and Teha Group: 'Italy has a supply of high quality water, and drinking water is mainly taken from underground sources to guarantee healthiness.

From the Aosta Valley to Basilicata

As for the numbers: in Valle d'Aosta and Umbria all drinking water comes from underground sources, in Puglia the percentage is 44.9%, while in Sardinia it drops to 21.6% and in Basilicata to 19.2%. "Better than us, in Europe, only Malta, Lithuania, Denmark, Slovenia and Croatia do," he argues. "However, to date, the state of the infrastructure for the treatment of waste water and the extension of the service are still not competitive: even today, 1.3 million Italians live in 296 municipalities without a purification service, especially in Sicily where 13% of citizens are not served with risks in terms of disinfection and prevention of contamination".

The State of the Rivers and Seas

In Europe, 46% of rivers, lakes, ponds, reservoirs or artificial canals, as well as seas and marshy areas, are not in a 'good chemical state' as 'contaminants from agricultural products, industrial discharges and urban waste water treatment plants are present, while in Italy only 16% of surface water is contaminated'. According to data from Teha's Community Valore Acqua per l'Italia, the situation from the chemical point of view "is critical for 31% of Sicilian surface waters, followed in order by the Serchio river basin in Tuscany with a percentage of 28% and the southern and northern Apennines (23 and 19% respectively). The situation is better in Sardinia with a percentage of 11%, in the Po basin with 9%, and in the central Apennines and eastern Alps with 3%.

Some improvement there has been

Over the last thirty years, however, the situation has also improved in Italy, albeit at a slower pace than the European average. "Italy can boast a low presence of nitrates in groundwater, 17.8mg/litre while the standard imposed by the EU is 50mg/litre, thus guaranteeing high quality and also a low presence of phosphate in rivers: only 0.05 mg/litre when the limit is 0.1 mg/litre," emphasises Benedetta Brioschi of Teha. Italy is among the 10 most virtuous countries in the EU in terms of reducing the use of pesticides, confirming how the entire economic fabric of the country is working to improve its impact on the environment and citizens' health'.

Safety studies

Certifying that the water that reaches Italian homes is safe and sustainable is also the first report by the National Centre for Water Safety (CeNSiA) of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, which examined (and released last July) the results of more than 2.5 million chemical, chemical-physical and microbiological analyses conducted in 18 Regions and Autonomous Provinces, corresponding to more than 90% of the Italian population, between 2020 and 2022.

"The national average percentage of compliance over the three years ranged between 99.1% for established microbiological and chemical health parameters and 98.4% for indicator parameters, not directly related to health but to abnormal variations in quality (which could, for example, affect taste, odour or colour)," it was explained during the presentation. From a territorial point of view, all regions showed very high average compliance rates, above 95%. The fluctuations in the compliance rate are minimal from the point of view of health prevention, which in any case was adequately ensured'.

The Other Frontier

Then there is a new frontier concerning the karstic aquifers on which the speleologists of the Italian Speleological Society have been working for years, punctually updating a long list with over 40 thousand sites. "We are in the presence of an important resource that in some centres is exploited but in others is not yet sufficiently exploited,'' points out Francesco Murgia, hydrogeologist, speleologist and national councillor of the Italian Speleological Society. ''Think of Rome, where the aqueducts refer to a great many karstic resources, as happens in some other centres. Not everywhere, however. "In general, however, we tend to exploit surface waters,' he adds. Yet it is precisely from karst aquifers that an important support for water supply could come, especially now that we have to deal with the effects of climate change.