Mercury in the rivers of the North, glyphosate widespread in the fields of the Centre, PFAS lurking in the Po basin. The latest ISPRA report on the state of Italian waters is a document that deals with reality, without discounts. But it also brings good news, and it’s worth starting from that.
The most positive note concerns the precision of monitoring, which has become decidedly more widespread: the percentage of surface water bodies with an “unknown” ecological state has fallen from 17% to 10%, while for the chemical state the uncertainty has fallen from 20% to 9%.
Today we know that more than 43% of rivers, lakes and coastal waters have achieved good or better ecological status, and nearly 80% of our groundwater reserves are in good balance. In this scenario, Sardinia stands out as a virtuous example, boasting the highest percentages of rivers and coastal waters in excellent health.
However, analyzing the data more deeply, a complex picture emerges linked to the presence of chemical pollutants that threaten the resilience of ecosystems.
The substances that worry you the most
There is a category of particularly insidious molecules, known in technical jargon as PBTu, which are persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic, capable of remaining in the environment for decades, accumulating in living organisms and moving up the food chain. Their widespread presence is one of the main obstacles to achieving the quality objectives set for 2027.
However, the main culprit for the failure of the objectives is mercury, which alone prevents as many as 524 water bodies from reaching “good status”, with a particularly high concentration of critical issues in the Northern Apennines district. Then there are benzo(a)pyrene and lead which contaminate numerous waters, especially in Southern Italy, while nickel and PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonic acid) show worrying levels in the Po basin and in the industrial areas of the North.
The picture becomes further complicated when we look at the agricultural world. Agriculture continues to exert significant pressure through the use of pesticides and their derivatives, such as AMPA and glyphosate, which are among the most frequently detected pollutants in the nation’s waterways. These substances, together with the excess of nutrients such as nitrates, contribute to the degradation of transition waters, such as lagoons and deltas, which appear to be the most suffering category with just 29% of water bodies in good chemical status.
Even for groundwater, the picture is complicated: although most aquifers are in balance, nitrate pollution and the phenomenon of salt intrusion, caused by excessive withdrawals and climate change, put the quality of deep water reserves at risk.
The European deadline is approaching
2027 will be the moment of truth for Italian waters. It is the final deadline of the management cycles envisaged by the European Union Water Framework Directive, and the objectives to be achieved are ambitious: bring the share of surface waters in good ecological status to 70%, those in good chemical status to 90%, and guarantee the balance of over 90% of underground aquifers.
But 2027 also hides a regulatory trap. With the next management cycle, twelve new priority substances will become fully binding, including PFOS, the compound from the PFAS family already widely detected in our waterways. So far these molecules have been monitored without affecting the official assessment. From 2027 onwards they will count. The real risk is that many water bodies currently classified as good will be downgraded not because the situation has worsened, but simply because the measurement criteria will become more severe.
The ISPRA report confirms that Italy has made significant progress in the ability to read the state of its waters: uncertainty about the ecological state has fallen from 17% to 10%, that about the chemical state from 20% to 9%. But the diagnosis is not the cure. Knowing precisely where mercury hides or how much glyphosate seeps into the soil removes neither. And mercury alone already prevents 524 water bodies from meeting quality goals.
In short, Italy must accelerate land reclamation, reduction of agricultural and industrial pressures and nature-based solutions. The excellent monitoring that ISPRA makes available to us must become the driver of concrete political action. Because measuring poisons without removing them only means documenting, in real time, the degradation of our most precious asset.
HERE you can find the complete Ispra report.
