New York – The Minister of the Environment Gilberto Pichetto Fratin he quotes Nelson Mandela at the end of his speech to the UN and says: “Without water there is no future”. The message is valid for the planet, where two billion people do not have access to safe water, but it is particularly valid for Italy, which is experiencing a water emergency certified by Istat data. 42 percent of losses from Italian aqueducts, the three million citizens at risk of rationing between now and the summer and the 19 Municipalities of Piedmont, as well as those of Brescia, supplied by tankers. The North, rich in lakes and rivers, suffers from a two-year drought, the Municipality of Milan has proposed to use the Navigli for irrigation.
The 425,000 kilometers of aqueducts deliver 422 liters per day per inhabitant, the highest value in Europe, according to Istat, but more than one in four Italians don’t trust too much. Of the 9.19 billion cubic meters that flow in the aqueducts, only 5.7 reach the tap, with a waste of 157 liters per day per inhabitant. Investments have gradually quadrupled since 2011, up to 56 euros per inhabitant per year, but the European average is 82. This is the heavy baggage that the minister is carrying with him to the Conference on Water, underway at the United Nations, forty-six years after the first in Mar del Plata, Argentina.
Compared to almost fifty years ago, the situation in Italy has worsened. “We have to start from home – he explains, meeting the journalists on the sidelines – Italy is determined in its response to the water crisis. Much has changed in terms of knowledge, tools and strategies. But it is clear that we have not done enough to fight what is one of the serious planetary emergencies”. “No one – she adds – must feel extraneous to this tragedy”.
Italian infrastructures are not in good shape. “We have aqueducts – confirms the minister – that lose more than forty percent of water, it is a serious dispersion”. We need to intervene immediately, continues Pichetto, and do it on several levels. By activating the funds already established by law. “We have one billion and 200 million from the Pnrr – he explains – we have other money from other laws that are struggling to be activated. We realize that the picture is changing. For thirty years the problem of water has not arisen for many reasons”.
There is also a climate crisis. “It rains less than in the past, the last fifty years we had twenty percent more rainfall”. Pichetto supports the need for a “different agroforestry policy”, aiming to use the seven thousand members of the Forest Guard in restoring the old and widespread monitoring of the territory. “In the past – he admits – there was a higher protection of the territory than today”. Among the initiatives, a new campaign to educate on the use of water, the development of infrastructures to allow waste water not to disperse en bloc but to feed the fields and give life to agriculture.
Furthermore, the minister announces the presentation, next week, of a plan for the desalination of water. “We have to speed up – he adds – the production of these plants, it’s something significant”. But there is also the commitment outside the borders, in the regions overwhelmed by the water emergency. Italy, the minister explains, has adopted the Climate Fund, which will be able to count on 840 million a year until 2026 for interventions linked to the Rio conventions, Agenda 2030 and other multilateral agreements”.
Pichetto recalled that in 2022 alone, Italy financed cooperation initiatives with 69 million euros, with over fifty bilateral projects in Africa, Latin America and Asia. “The priority – he underlines – is aimed at the area of the Sahel and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Mediterranean basin and small island developing States. Sustainability also means working together to prevent entire populations from moving in search of water and acceptable life”. In the Mediterranean area, he says, “it’s a commitment to solidarity. Helping with water is a great help”.