Drinking water in Italian homes is sustainable and safe: the checks carried out in the last 3 years indicate that it complies with the parameters indicated by law in almost 100% of cases. This is certified by the first report prepared by the National Center for Water Safety (Censia) of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, presented today. The report, created on the basis of data produced by the Italian Regions together with the National System for Environmental Protection and coordinated by the Ministry of Health and the ISS, examined the results of over 2.5 million chemical, chemical-physical and microbiological analyses conducted in 18 regions and autonomous provinces, corresponding to over 70% of the Italian population, between 2020 and 2022.
“The data we have collected shows that drinking water is safe and monitored throughout the country over time, compliant with legal parameters in almost 100% of cases and with safe management of non-compliance. It is important to reiterate this concept, given that according to Istat, almost a third of Italians do not trust the water from their taps”, says Rocco Bellantone, president of the ISS. The average national percentage of compliance for all 3 years monitored is between 99.93% for microbiological parameters and 99.95% for chemical parameters and equal to 99.97% for the so-called indicator parameters, not directly related to health. From a local point of view, all regions showed very high percentages of compliance, above 92%.
The fluctuations in the compliance rate are minimal from the point of view of health prevention, which in any case has been adequately ensured. The data however record Emilia Romagna as the best region, both for chemical and microbiological health parameters and for indicator parameters, followed by Piedmont and Veneto, while the relatively lower compliance rates for health parameters are recorded in the autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano, and, for indicator parameters, in Umbria and in the province of Trento.
Report first step towards ‘registry’ to make all data available on your area
Italy has played an important role in asking, at European level, to build legislation that is even more stringent on the quality and safety of drinking water, as underlined by the Director General of the ISS, Andrea Piccioli. “In the sector of water intended for human consumption – he continues – Italy represents a model of prevention and response, also presented as a reference at the World Water Conference in New York 2023, which creates an extensive partnership between institutions and public and private entities, which has among its priority objectives policies of access to safe water and sanitation as a fundamental right for the entire population, including places of care, schools and priority buildings”. The publication of the report is the first step towards the construction of a ‘water registry’, with the aim of making all the data on the characteristics of drinking water in their area available to the public.
“Although water is the circular resource par excellence, the governance and controls that preside over its safety are often segmented into different regulations, institutional structures and implementing bodies”, explains Luca Lucentini, director of Censia. “For this reason too, with a national law followed by a legislative decree, the National Center for Water Safety was established at the ISS which, among other tasks, will also manage the collection and analysis of data through the Dynamic Territorial Registry of Drinking Water (Antea), to guarantee complete and updated information to citizens who will be able to know the origin and quality of their tap water, starting from the water resources taken from natural environments up to their tap, and highlighting all the protection and control measures applied, also connecting to the National Information System for the Protection of Italian Waters, coordinated and managed by the Higher Institute for Environmental Protection (ISPRA)”.
Finally, on the occasion of the publication of the report, the ISS provides a video and a dedicated website (https://www.iss.it/acqua-e-salute-copertina) with all the useful information on water, starting from the description of its ‘journey’ from the point where it is collected to the tap at home. There is then a focus on what the different types of water are and what their importance is for health.
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