These days, talking about water immediately brings to mind images of a country severely affected by sudden and violent cloudbursts. Southern Italy, which until just a few weeks ago was directly experiencing a dangerous and relentless process of tropicalization, is now dealing with flooding and major disruption. Heavy rainfall is also affecting the North of the country, partially easing the water deficit in Italian rivers and lakes. But not enough to refill them.
Drought and desertification are no longer merely summer phenomena, as confirmed by the current levels of the Po, Italy’s longest river, which even in December remain below the average recorded over the past 20 years. At the same time, the Italian mountains revealed their most vulnerable side in 2022, described as “a black year for Italian Alpine glaciers” in a recent Legambiente report.
The truth is that water, both globally and here in Italy, reflects the profound changes, dynamics and paradoxes of a society that seems to have forgotten what it means to confront the memory and power of water.
Water is life, yet more than 30% of Italian households do not have regular access to water throughout the year. Even in recent months, this has been demonstrated by the experiences of people in Andora, Liguria, and in Udine, where water supply disruptions were caused by broken pipelines.
Water is nourishment, yet 299 pollutants have been detected in Italian lakes, rivers and groundwater. Water is food, yet entire regions such as Puglia, Sicily and Sardinia are already classified as arid areas by the World Atlas of Desertification.
Water is a collective responsibility, yet Italy holds the unfortunate European record for per capita water consumption, at 220 litres per person per day compared with a European average of 165 litres. And yet, almost half of Italians believe their own water-use habits are responsible.
These are only some of the figures that demonstrate the importance and urgency of bringing the time and value of water back to the centre of public attention: the water that once existed and can return if properly protected; the water that heals rather than poisons; the water that connects citizens with politics and humanity with nature, instead of dividing them.
To achieve this, we need to move beyond simplistic approaches that blame one sector or another, avoiding the dangerous fragmentation of the ecosystem into isolated bubbles and instead embracing an ecosystem-based, comprehensive and interdisciplinary vision.
This inevitably means asking, particularly during these months of abundant rainfall, where all this water goes and how it can be better managed and stored in order to cope with future periods of scarcity.
Connecting different stakeholders more effectively and creating enabling environments in which different perspectives can interact is what brings the Future Food Institute and EIT Food together in their shared mission: transforming water from a problem that affects the individual, social, economic and environmental dimensions into a tool for integral ecological regeneration.
The stories, successes and case studies found throughout our country, some of which are shared below, provide tangible evidence that this path is genuinely possible.
Read the article on Nova – Il Sole 24 ORE
