The Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Matteo Salvini convened the control room on the water crisis on 9 July 2026. 733 interventions financed for over 6 billion euros were presented on the table, around a billion destined for drinking water infrastructure and another 700 million aimed mainly at the irrigation sector. In all, approximately 7.7 billion euros.
According to the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, the Centre-South shows better conditions than last year, while in the Po basin situations of significant water severity persist which require attention and monitoring. The ministerial note attributes to Salvini the request to proceed through planning, speed of intervention and a “long-term vision”. The long-term vision has already had the opportunity to be exercised: the last published session of the cabin dated back to 8 August 2025.
The speed, 335 days later
335 days passed between August 8, 2025 and July 9, 2026. About eleven months, enough to go through the end of a summer, all of autumn, winter, spring and return to the season in which water scarcity returns to occupy titles, fields and municipal ordinances.
On the portal of the National Extraordinary Commissioner for Water Scarcity, the previous session remains that of 8 August 2025. The calendar then shows the meeting of 10 April of the same year, those of 15 November, 1 October and 12 September 2024, together with the previous sessions up to August 2023.
We are talking about the last session published on the institutional portal, which could receive further additions. With the documents available today, the body called to coordinate the response to the water crisis has remained off the public calendar for eleven months. The drought followed a shorter timescale. The waterways continued to fall, rainfall maintained an irregular pattern and summer returned on time.
©MIT
Six days before the meeting, the Po River District Authority confirmed an average water severity in the absence of precipitation. In Piedmont several waterways were in difficulty; in the Delta the salt wedge, i.e. the rise of sea water along the river, had reached approximately 25 kilometres. The crisis had already opened the agenda on its own.
For this reason, the interval between the two sessions weighs more than a simple calendar curiosity: the control room was created to coordinate administrations, Extraordinary Commissioner and subjects involved in the management of water scarcity. Such an organism gains utility through continuity, monitoring and decisions made before the pressure rises again. The July meeting arrives when the dry season has already begun and the Po basin shows documented critical issues.
The billions arrive before the construction sites
The statement brings together sums with different administrative histories. The first six billion are “already programmed”. In March 2025, the MIT already spoke of 565 interventions financed for around 5 billion, to which was added a first excerpt of the National Plan for the water sector worth over 954 million.
More caution is needed on the billion allocated to drinking water. The July 9 statement leaves the financial instrument unnamed. The amount and purpose coincide with the SFNIISSI, the one billion fund managed by Invitalia for infrastructure, security of supply, digitalisation and reduction of losses.
For that fund, according to the documentation published by Invitalia, applications opened on 6 May and closed on 8 June 2026. The coincidence appears strong and requires explicit confirmation from the MIT. If the billion indicated in the booth coincided with the SFNIISSI, the counter had been closed for a month and the investigation, selection and assignment remained. If it were a different measure, the statement leaves the origin, procedure and timetable to be clarified.
The 700 million for irrigation instead belong to a program which, in the words of the Ministry, “is being defined”. The total is already ready; allotment, works and deadlines will follow. The state of progress also deserves a more precise distinction. In resolution no. 56/2025/CCC, published on 22 December 2025, the Concomitant Control Board of the Court of Auditors dedicates a passage to the “procedural stasis relating to some interventions of the PNIISSI”.
The relief concerns some interventions, not the entire Plan. However, it shows the distance between a figure entered into the programming and an infrastructure ready to function. In the middle there are designs, authorisations, tenders, works and tests. In press releases they occupy one line. On the territory they can take years.
Four out of ten liters disappear before the tap
Over these 335 days, the pipes continued to do what they have been doing for decades: leaking water. In the latest ARERA annual report, the Authority indicates average water losses equal to 42.5% of the water injected into the networks. In the South and in the Islands the share rises to 50.6%; in the North-West it drops to 34.4%.
Out of ten liters entering Italian pipelines, more than four are lost along the way. In the South, over half of them disappear. Before the major works, the reservoirs and the press conferences, one concrete matter remains: delivering the water already available.
ARERA’s annual report also records an improvement compared to the basic data of 2016 and consistent financial planning. For the period 2024-2029, the sample analyzed includes 170 managements serving just under 54 million inhabitants and foresees investments of 29.6 billion euros. The reduction of losses absorbs 26.8% of planned expenditure, the highest share among the priorities of the water service.
Photography changes again by looking at the ability to transform programs into works. The investment realization rate reaches 86% in 2023 for the sample as a whole. In the South and in the Islands it stops at 60%. Precisely in the area where the dispersions exceed half of the water introduced, the execution proceeds with greater difficulty.
This distance weighs more than the announced totals. An allocated billion fills a table and opens up a possibility. A rehabilitated network recovers water every day, reduces waste, relieves pressure on sources and makes territories less vulnerable during dry periods. The MIT statement lists 733 interventions and over six billion already planned. The kilometers of replaced pipelines, the volumes recovered and the number of works already operational are left out. They are less spectacular data, with the defect of measuring what really happened.
The water crisis thus remains suspended between a structural problem and a response that is still very much linked to the emergency season. The 335-day interval between the last two publicly documented sessions at least tells of the pace at which political coordination was made visible and verifiable. The 42.5% loss tells the physical result that families, managers and territories continue to deal with. The word “speed” had eleven months to prepare. Now the construction sites are needed: the press releases, up to this point, are perfectly waterproof.
