New Apulia Nitrates Action Plan: identification of suitable policies aimed to reduce water pollution and improve environmental sustainability on regional scale.

In 2005 Apulia Region approved the first Nitrates Action Plan (D.G.R. n° 2036) proposing the designation of regional Nitrates Vulnerable Zones (NVZs) caused by nitrates from agricultural sources, as required by the European Directive "91/676/CEE" and the National one's (D.Lgs 152/06). These polluted areas were confirmed in 2010 (D.G.R. n. 1317). Successively, in 2012, all the Italian regions have been called to update Nitrates Vulnerable Zones (NVZs) designation. Therefore, a detailed study has been carried out in order to investigate what has been change during the last four-year period (2008-2011) in which an elaborate regional water resources monitoring has been conducted. Data analyses and elaboration of all available monitoring results allowed to: (i) identify the main pollution sources emerging in the region, (ii) analyze the influence of previous policy actions evaluating their efficiency on the regional land, and last (iii) draft new suitable policies aimed to reduce the actual nitrates pollution evidenced during the last examined four years. In particular, it was found that a positive effect of the previous policy actions occurred in the reduction of some of the regional NVZs and, at the same time, new opportune mitigation strategies to control and manage nitrates pollution in the updated NVZs have been identified and proposed to improve regional environmental sustainability.