Waterway transport on the Po, upgrading navigation to European standards

If the sea takes the lion's share of the Italian Blue Economy (and it could not be otherwise in a country with over 8,300 km of coastline), rivers are also a resource with great potential. In particular for a goods transport system that is less impactful than road transport. Looking at the North-East, the Fissero-Tartaro-Canalbianco-Po di Levante waterway immediately springs to mind, which connects Mantua to the Adriatic and for most of its 135 km flows through the provinces of Verona and Rovigo.

And it is precisely to this waterway that the recent study by The European House - Ambrosetti for Confindustria Veneto Est and Confindustria Mantova is dedicated. Which highlights how this link is a key factor in Italian commercial waterway transport and stands out for its guarantee of navigability at full load 365 days a year and the safe destination of goods on certain and programmable times. Its use has increased by 160% in less than ten years and its supply chain involves 25 economic macro-sectors, over 4 thousand direct, indirect and induced employees, and generates an added value of almost 500 million (about 3% of the GDP of the provinces of Rovigo and Mantua). But, according to the study, the deployment of the full potential of integrated freight transport along the Fissero-Tartaro-Canalbianco-Po di Levante is inhibited by regulatory obstacles, infrastructural constraints and an inefficient fleet.

"The strengthening of the inland waterways of the Po Valley-Veneto, from Mantua to Venice, as an integrative and intermodal mode of freight transport, plays a fundamental role for the future of our territory, as well as for a manufacturing industry grappling with forms of logistical reorganisation of value chains and with decarbonisation targets, as well as for sustainable mobility and slow tourism," Paolo Armenio, vice-president of Confindustria Veneto Est for the Rovigo area, told Il Sole 24 Ore. - The new challenges are advancing and we must be ready, also to fully deploy the potential of the FTA by attracting investments from abroad as well. The signs on the strengthening of the waterway system are positive, starting with the awarding by the Veneto Region of the works to complete the railway bridge over the Rosolina (Rovigo) canal. The priority is to make inland navigation safer and more adequate to European standards'.

The study, which identifies six priority lines of action to revitalise the waterway sector, points out that the successful grounding of planned investments could generate an additional turnover of 1.4 billion by 2030. And that if an additional 4 million tonnes of goods were to travel by waterway, there would be a saving of 100,000 tonnes of CO2. This is an important figure, given that over 30% of energy consumption and 20% of greenhouse gas emissions in Italy are due to the transport sector, and that Brussels also wants to achieve its decarbonisation goals by increasing EU waterway transport by 25%.

Of course, while rivers offer great opportunities for a less impactful goods movement system, they must be monitored and protected, primarily against pollution. And the use of water resources, fundamental for domestic use but also for agriculture and tourism, must be prudent and planned on the basis of constantly updated data. Especially with the current climate crisis, which causes periods of water scarcity or even drought even in Alpine areas, until a few years ago immune to these risks thanks to the snow that accumulated at high altitudes in winter.