Water Law, Policy and Economics in Italy

Due to its geographical position, Italy denotes great meteorological variability from one Region to the other, which affects the availability of natural water resources. The main rivers and the largest lakes are located in the northern and central parts of the Country. A discrepancy characterises also the availability of groundwater, which is conditioned by the variable geological pattern of the Italian territory. An evaluation of water resources is based on the available data collected during a long sequence of years by the responsible structures belonging to the central Government and the Regional administrations. More recent data, focusing on the hydrological balances in selected zones of the country, allows the potential and the usable resource to be evaluated. For the present time, the current withdrawal meets principally the urban and domestic demand, but other fundamental sectors, like agriculture, industry and electric energy generation, request large amounts of water, which often gives rise to undesirable conflicts among users. A widespread discharge of polluted wastewater is now responsible of the low quality level of some receiving surface and underground bodies, reducing the amount of usable resources. An intensive activity is in progress to achieve the ecological standards imposed by the European Union on wastewater by means of treatment plants and to guarantee the ecological flows in the watercourses. Unconventional resources, like desalinated sea and brackish water and treated urban and industrial wastewater, contribute to increasing the availability of usable water. Recycling treated wastewater can be a promising solution for reducing freshwater demand. Some assumptions on climate change have been considered, which could affect the availability of water resources in the various Regions of the Country.

After more than 150 years from the birth of the Country, Italians should have learnt that coping with floods is a never-ending challenge. The strategies to deal with it require the fundamental awareness that the key factors are not just money, loans and financial flows, but consciousness, knowledge, expertise, sharing, equity. The multiple routes include adapting to climate change, smart forecasting, assessing river basin management, improving the design standards of engineering works, taking care of hillslope and river maintenance, revising dam operation strategies, reducing exposure as well as vulnerability to flood risk, discontinuing land consumption, improving urban resilience.

This chapter analyses the most relevant economic literature on water uses in Italy. In particular, the economic value of water is investigated in four main sectors: urban water services, agriculture, recreational industry and energy. As far as the urban water sector is concerned, most studies analyse the consequences of the introduction of the so-called Legge Galli, a complex reform in water governance started in 1994. The studies on water use in the agricultural sector are divided mainly in two branches: the use values of water (which was found to range from 0.3 to 1.2 €/m³) and the total economic costs and benefits of certain measures, such as for drought management or pollution reduction. For what concerns industry and energy, the economic value of water is rarely evaluated, especially in the former sector, while the majority of studies seem to focus on the environmental impact of production by considering water use and consumption (water footprint). In the chapter, instead, the point of view of the consumer is primarily analysed in relation to the recreational sector, where the willingness to pay for better environmental and recreational services connected to water was estimated between €3 and €1056 per year. Nevertheless, the literature review points out the lack of cross-sectional studies of sectors. This lacuna is probably connected to the limited integration among the actors that manage water resources and a too fragmented governance. Solving these issues will guarantee a better allocation of water resources both among users and over time, thus targeting the challenges of adaptation and resilience in the water-energy-food nexus.

By looking at water as a sociological object of analysis, the chapter outlines how the insights obtained from sociology can help to a great extent when framing both water as a commodity and water use as a practice. Building on the existing literature, the chapter discusses the specificity of Italy as a meaningful case study and focuses on water saving behaviour and bottled water consumption as two facets of water sustainability. After a preliminary account on the sociology of water and on the characteristics of the Italian context, we make use of the 2014 Multipurpose Survey of Daily Life and the 2014 Survey on Household Consumption by ISTAT to analyse whether water saving behaviour and bottled water consumption are stratified by economic and cultural resources. We provide evidence that while water saving behaviour is almost evenly distributed across the population, the probability of purchasing bottled water is highly dependent on the economic resources of the household. In the conclusion, we discuss our findings and their major limitations, and provide some additional research questions that sociologists could help address.

Starting with Law no. 36/1994, later expanded on by the Italian Environmental Code of 2006, waters in Italy are no longer regarded as a production asset to be exploited, in a perspective of economic efficiency; they are finally seen as an environmental asset to be protected. All waters are public, so that the State may take care of them and preserve them for future generations. The State does not therefore act as the owner but, rather, as the custodian of waters. Water displays all the features of common pool resources (provision of non-excludable ecological services, scarcity, and vulnerability), and community self-governance instruments – such as river contracts – are increasingly widespread. District-scale planning has become standard practice, leading to a re-sizing of the role of concessions, which are being revised more and more often in the increasingly frequent water shortage situations. The integrated water service is regulated by the Italian Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and the Environment, which, mostly through the approval of pricing policies, drives operators towards efficiency improvements and infrastructural investments. Pricing has also taken on a social function, in that it must fund both water bill reductions for low-income households and measures designed to limit disconnections for payment default.

The present contribution aims to provide a comprehensive account of Italian legislation on water quality and water protection through criminal law. The Italian legal regime on water quality largely builds on the overarching European Union framework, which includes the Water Framework Directive, the Drinking Water Directive and the Nitrates Directive. The path towards full implementation of European water policies in Italy has been, however, all but void of drawbacks and still entails remarkable shortcomings. Hence the Italian implementation of European directives in Italy will be addressed, with a view to highlighting the several nuances with regard to non-compliance and the extensive use of exemptions and derogations. Furthermore, this contribution will provide an overview of the fragmented Italian legal regime for criminalisation of water pollution as interpreted by Italian criminal courts. The upshot of this overview is the ultimate unfitness of the Italian criminal legal regime to adequately ensure water quality protection. Last, the far-reaching 2015 reform of the Criminal Code on environmental crimes is analysed, which arguably paves the way for a more coherent and ecosystem-oriented approach to water quality while strengthening coordination between administrative and criminal responses to water pollution.

This chapter focuses on the case of the Po river basin. After describing the case study area and its vulnerability to drought, we address the characteristics and the effects of drought in the Po river basin, based on the empirical evidence on the socio-economic impacts of drought events occurred so far. Then, we illustrate and discuss the approach to drought management, taking into consideration the key planning documents and experiences. Our work shows that the Po river basin has reached a turning point, as concerns water resources and drought management. The approach adopted by the local public institutions is essentially reactive; however, it is here maintained that proactive and structural measures are required in order to anticipate and prevent better the negative effects of drought.

This chapter analyses the norms and principles concerning the management of transboundary waters under international law, as well as the provisions of the Water Framework Directive on the same issue under European Union law. Then, the focus is moved to the hydrographical situation of Italy and the waters the country shares with neighbouring States. Even though, unlike other European countries, Italy does not share major watercourses or water bodies with other States, in at least a couple of cases (Lake Maggiore and Lake Lugano shared with Switzerland, and River Isonzo/Soča shared with Slovenia) joint management and control systems are in force, which pre-date the WFD by many years.

The purpose of this chapter is to contribute to the knowledge about the water-food-trade nexus in Italy by introducing the concepts of water footprint and virtual water trade. Virtual water is the water “embedded” in the production of agricultural and industrial goods and services, whereas virtual water trade refers to the exchange of such embedded water that takes place as a result of the international commodity trade. The chapter aims at outlining the Country’s green and blue water footprint of agricultural production, as well as providing a comprehensive overview of virtual water trade embedded in the agricultural commodity trade, over the period 1985–2016. The quantitative analyses are complemented by a policy-relevant discussion detailing the practical causes and implications of the results.

The tenth anniversary since the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of a resolution recognising the right to water is a good occasion for taking stock of Italy’s efforts in implementing this right. The human rights discourse in water matters has often resonated in civil society’s initiatives in the last decade, so that it cannot be excluded that these stances have influenced the relatively fast evolution of the Italian legislation in this field. Indeed, in the very last years some laws have been passed that require the competent regulatory authority – ARERA – to take into account the basic needs of users in formulating the pricing scheme for what is known as the integrated water service, as well as in putting forth the rules limiting disconnection from the service. The authority, however, has not been the only institutional actor to move in this direction: governmental bodies at any level have done so, from Municipalities to Regions, up to the national legislature. Even though this process has not been devoid of some conflictual aspects, which have also involved the judiciary, something that can be called a “right to water” is definitely taking shape in Italy – as the Country’s domestic legal system and foreign policy seem to witness.

Regulatory governance in Italy underwent a process of institutionalisation over more than 25 years and at the same time it faced the de-institutionalisation of the same design. The resulting multi-level governance is piecemeal and weakly coordinated. The chapter reconstructs the long and undefined process whereby the Italian water system underwent a deep transformation from Municipal management toward regulatory governance through an incremental and incoherent trajectory. This process is described as a combination of institutionalisation and de-institutionalization. Evidence is presented on three aspects: (i) the permanent re-design of the water system over 25 years; (ii) the state of implementation and the role of the protests by the water movement against regulatory governance; and (iii) the state of the awarding of concessions and the market of private companies. All three sets of evidence are interpreted as pointing towards a case of incremental unprotection and fall of public attention as to the destiny of the water system. Similarly, it is also a failure of the design and of State coordination. The conclusion is that the centre is unable to hold and that fragmentation is still strong, although reshaped by different factors. As a result, the water system in the Italian policy agenda is now marginalised and “ungarrisoned”.

This chapter analyses the complex evolution of the Italian regulatory framework on water supply, which is a so-called integrated public service, since it concerns as a whole the public services of catchment, intake and supply of water for all kinds of uses, for sewerage purposes, and for the depuration of waste waters. The integrated water service, a local public network service with economic relevance, shall be managed in compliance with the principles enshrined in European Union law, which maintains a neutral position (the free administration principle) with respect to private or public models of management of SGEIs. Both models present pros and cons, so every municipality, within the European legal framework, has to choose the best management form for water service supply, prioritising the needs of its population and the socio-economic characteristics of its territory, also in light of water access being conceived as a human right. The chapter concludes by considering that, irrespective of the management model chosen by local governmental bodies to run the integrated water service, of great importance is the necessity to guarantee the modernisation of the water network, in order to avoid the loss of a resource which is (and must remain) public, as it is bound to be bequeathed intact to future generations.

In 1994, a far-reaching reform of water and sanitation utilities was launched. Integration, industrialisation, self-sufficiency and cost-recovery were its keywords. Initially welcomed by an overwhelming consensus, the reform soon met implementation difficulties and experienced piecemeal application. In 2011, following a popular referendum, fundamental innovations in the regulatory system were introduced. This chapter reviews the industrial development (governance, arrangements, price regulations) through legislation, the establishment of an independent regulatory authority, and the impact of all these factors on prices, performance, investment and quality improvements.

This chapter aims at putting the institutional management of water bodies in Italy in perspective. The evolution of the regime governing water bodies is discussed, taking into account the situation prior to as well as after the implementation of the Water Framework Directive. In particular, the current regime, enforced through Legislative Decree no. 152/2006, meant to bring the Italian legal system in line with the abovementioned Directive, is illustrated and commented upon. The long implementation process is described, from Law no. 13/2009 to Legislative Decree no. 49/2010 (which transposed the Floods Directive), Law no. 221/2015 and Ministerial Decree of 25 October 2016, which ultimately brought to completion the reform in water management. Indeed, this dynamic process represents an interesting case that triggers a number of questions about the effectiveness and coherence of the national institutional and legislative framework. The main phases that marked water governance history in Italy are analysed.

The European Union directives commonly known as Water Framework Directive and Flood Directive represent turning points for European water policies. In this chapter, we briefly describe how they affect people working in the fields of water resources management, exploitation and protection of and from water bodies in Italy. We illustrate the work needed to comply with the obligations of the directives generally, who did the work and with what responsibilities in past implementation cycles, and what was actually done for both directives up to 2016. The result is a picture of the Italian water management system: one that is defined not only by laws, but also by habits and the way institutions have developed during recent history through their interplay with growing technical knowledge, the implementation of policies, and the evolution of the Italian society. The chapter is divided as follows: Sect. 16.1 reports what has to be done to accomplish the goals of the directives generally; Sect. 16.2 explains who performed the actions required by the directives in past implementation cycles; Sects. 16.3 and 16.4 describe and discuss the state of Italy’s application of the directives; Sect. 16.5 covers the role of science in the implementation of the directives; and, finally, Sect. 16.6 contains some considerations on the main critical aspects of the whole process and on the challenges the future application of the directives (in the period 2021–2027) is going to face.

This chapter provides an overview of the financing patterns of the Italian water sector, which is segmented and characterised by a wide plurality of management systems and operators. In the last 25 years, Italy has introduced far-reaching reforms, which concerned in particular urban water supply and sanitation. The most important goal was to create the basis for an autonomous and self-sufficient water industry, driving the sector out of the public budget. Financial equilibrium of water undertakings and access to market-based finance have thence dominated over other possible aims of water pricing. Other sectors, and notably irrigation, continue to follow more traditional schemes. The chapter also discusses further reform opportunities with a view to turning water prices into economic incentives for a more sustainable use of water resources.

This chapter describes the design of a reform scheme for public water abstraction charges aimed at implementing the Water Framework Directive principles of (i) internalising the externalities associated with water use (or at least recover the cost of measures implemented to protect water resources); (ii) inducing an efficient allocation among competing uses; and (iii) achieving water and environmental protection without excessively hampering economic activities. We provide a simulation of the resulting water pricing systems based on data from the Piedmont Region, in north-western Italy. The reform design grounds water charges on the impacts on ecosystem services caused both by subtracting resources to freshwater ecosystems and by returning water to ecosystems, after human use, in a qualitatively degraded state. The system takes into account that the marginal damage of water uses may also depend on the quantitative and qualitative status of the concerned water body, and controls for incidence of the resulting charges.

Public participation is one of the most important trends in international environmental law in the last 30 years, since the adoption of Principle 10 of the 1992 Rio Declaration. The European Union’s acquis has been influenced by this trend so that today many of its directives and other instruments contain provisions on the need to conduct public participation. In the water sector, the key legislative sources of public participation (that includes information supply, consultation processes and active involvement) are Article 14 of the Water Framework Directive and Article 9(3) of the Floods Directive. The chapter explores the way Italy has implemented these provisions with a reference to practical cases and by considering the relevant levels of government (State, river basin districts and Regions). Special attention is also devoted to the study of the so-called “river contracts” negotiated between institutions and the general public – a practice that has now a solid history in Italy.

In the Renaissance, Italy brought to Europe the re-invention of Roman law as applied to water, and it kept its surface waters as common pool resources, thus allowing the existence of irrigation communities which were models for Europeans in the nineteenth century. More recently, political decentralisation made it difficult for the Country to develop river basin institutions before they were adopted at European level with the Water Framework Directive. So, it was rather in the area of water supply and sanitation services that the most important reforms were adopted. However, these sparked a struggle between proponents, who took inspiration from the English privatisation and tariff regulation, and opponents, who claimed that water should remain a local issue and a common good. As the public-versus-private debate goes on at global level, there is in Europe a variety of management models for both water resources and water services, which could inspire Italy in finding its own way towards a sustainable water policy.

A look into the future of Italy’s water governance needs a systematic stocktake of the Country’s strengths and weak spots. Although the reading of this volume may leave the impression that the latter are more than the former, a somewhat positive evolution of water management in many respects cannot be denied. The legal and policy landscape has changed a lot since the inception of the new millennium, and some reforms are still too young to be appropriately evaluated. Moreover, such an assessment requires that a multidisciplinary perspective be taken, so as to account for a complex reality where the uses, purposes, actors and impacts relating to water are varied. In this sense, these brief concluding remarks are also meta-observations, that is, observations on how water-related issues are studied now or would be studied best. In addition to recapping the most salient points of the analyses carried out in the book chapters, some final hints on the way forward are outlined.