In the large Italian dams, almost 6.5 billion cubic meters of water, essential for managing the hottest months of the year, are not exploited due to lack of maintenance and blocked bureaucracy.
The data emerges from the White Book 2024 Value of Water for Italy by The European House - Ambrosetti which will be presented together with the Blue Book 2024 by Fondazione Utilitatis and Utilitalia with all the updated data on the integrated water service on 21 and 22 March on the occasion of World Water Day .
The 532 large Italian reservoirs, explains the report, can potentially collect up to 13.8 billion cubic meters of water to date, to which are added approximately 800 million cubic meters from small reservoirs, but on average 33% (4.3 billion cubic metres) cubic) of their volume is reduced due to the debris that accumulates in the seabed (silting) with peaks of up to 48% in the territories of the Po river. In this context, the regulatory uncertainty regarding hydroelectric concessions, in recent years, has limited operators' investments .
Added to the failure to accumulate water due to siltation is a further 1.9 billion cubic meters of collection capacity already available in the current infrastructural system of dams in Italy, but never authorised.
The analysis shows that Lombardy (77), Sardinia (59) and Sicily (46) have the largest number of large dams, with a capacity of 4, 2.5 and 1.1 billion cubic meters respectively, i.e. over 50% of the total national capacity.
There are 26,288 small reservoirs in Italy with Tuscany hosting 62%.
The oldest dams are in Liguria (92 years old), Valled'Aosta (84) and Piedmont (82) while the youngest are in Molise (35 years old on average), in Puglia (41 years old) and in Calabria (50 years old) .
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