Planning agricultural wastewater reuse in southern Italy: The case of Apulia Region

The future of southern Italian regions lays mainly on conservation and recovery of their peculiar environment (i.e., pleasant climate, beautiful nature and historic heritage). Presently, most of such regions have to face major problems related to water shortage for agriculture and, in some cases, even for drinking purposes. In these regions water shortage is a growing problem and wastewater reclamation and reuse, a key options for their sustainable development, has not yet been implemented at large scale. In these regions, the interest for wastewater reuse is particularly addressed to agricultural and landscape irrigation with the aim of both enhancing the local economy, mostly based on agriculture, and saving good quality water resources for drinking purposes. Referring to the Apulia region, it has many analogies with other areas affected by chronic water scarcity, i.e: the rapid development of local economy, the changes in traditional agriculture practices and land use, the groundwater over-exploitation with consequent sea water intrusion, the climate changes. The mix of all these factors, although with a different weight, has been the main cause of the frequent water shortage problems recorded in the region. Although over the last decades these problems have been partially mitigated by the construction of water transport infrastructures and reservoirs, they are still far to be definitely solved. Because of this, finally, regional authorities have defined a water resources protection and management master plan in which the reuse of treated wastewater, not only in agriculture, plays a relevant role [1]. This paper outlines the local environmental conditions and the rationale supporting such a choice.