The conference “Water, the priorities of recovery and reuse” was held at the Campidoglio in Rome, Italy. The Mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, opened the event, which was attended by public administrators, academics and managers. Among them were Roma Capitale councillors Ornella Segnalini, responsible for public works, and Sabrina Alfonsi, responsible for the environment. Marco Casini, Secretary General of the Basin Authority, Luca Lucentini, Director of the National Centre for Water Safety of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Claudio Cosentino, President of Acea Ato2, Bruno Manzi, President of Ama, Lorenza Di Carlo, Head of Sustainability of Atac, Massimiliano Ricci, Director General of Unindustria, as well as speeches by representatives of Ispra, Consorzi di Bonifica and Città Metropolitana.
The meeting is based on the Roma Capitale Climate Adaptation Strategy, adopted in January 2025, which identifies the main challenges Rome will have to face in a scenario of rising global temperatures, which we know is already a reality. And the priorities for action to make people, public spaces, infrastructures and economic activities safe.
Mayor Gualtieri said: “Rome as capital continues its commitment to one of the most urgent challenges of our time: climate adaptation and sustainable management of water resources. Water is indeed an increasingly precious resource, and our territory is already exposed to extreme phenomena, but it is also the subject of unprecedented investments to ensure safe and efficient water management, together with Acea, with ever better results in reducing losses in the water network. At the same time, we need to reduce the consumption of precious spring water through new water recovery and reuse projects, for which Rome is already a laboratory of innovation that we want to accelerate by involving all institutional and economic actors. Today is the first step in a new and ambitious path, so that water reuse increasingly becomes a central element of our climate strategy, in which safety, innovation and urban livability go hand in hand.”
Councillor Segnalini said: “(…) In just one year, we have saved water for a town of 100,000 inhabitants. We have set ourselves the goal of further reducing losses and we will achieve this by the end of our term of office.”
Sabrina Alfonsi, Councillor for Agriculture, Environment and Waste Cycle of Roma Capitale, said: “Our administration has developed a water resource management model, which is part of the Climate Change Adaptation Plan, based on recovery, reuse and recycling. Water is not an infinite resource: we need to involve citizens and make them more aware of its use. This is what we are doing with urban gardens, for example, where we have invested in equipping them with containers to collect and reuse rainwater. In addition, Rome has initiated a collaboration with ISPRA to monitor and improve the network of wells and underground aquifers: valuable resources for irrigating parks and gardens, for example. In our projects, such as the Corviale Park, we use sustainable solutions, including a rain garden based on rainwater harvesting. Major structural interventions in the water network must be accompanied by wide-ranging actions that involve citizens and strengthen the culture of water as a primary common good to be safeguarded.”
Focus on water management
The meeting highlighted the urgency of managing water resources in the face of increasingly frequent and prolonged droughts, accompanied by heat waves, followed by heavy rainfall and flooding.
In Rome, unprecedented resources are being invested in securing the water supply, while Acea has already significantly reduced losses to 27%, compared to a national average of 41%, thanks to the modernisation and digitalisation of the network. Work is also underway to double the size of the Peschiera aqueduct, with an investment of 1.2 billion lire, and to carry out long-awaited work on sewerage networks and collectors in many suburbs.
The conference addressed the new major challenge facing all urban areas: the recovery and reuse of water. For Rome, this means reducing the consumption of water that comes from the Apennines or from wells that draw it from aquifers that are increasingly in trouble. It is now possible to use water that has been purified, recovered and reused. For example, to wash roads, for public lorries, to fight fires, to feed production and agricultural activities, or to water parks, gardens and trees.
In 2024, Rome will consume 261 million cubic metres of water between residential, industrial, agricultural and other urban uses. In the same year, Rome’s wastewater treatment plants, managed by Acea Ato 2, treated more than 488 million cubic metres of water. These figures give an idea of the potential for replacing drinking water (which accounts for 95% of consumption) with treated water.
The aim of Roma Capitale is therefore to speed up the process of water recovery by involving all the institutional and economic players, studying the regulatory barriers to be overcome, the potential for reuse and the investment options. From large projects involving water treatment plants to smaller ones, such as the possible recycling of water from the so-called “nasoni”, the public drinking fountains, which are a heritage of our city that we want to defend and develop.
Today, water management is one of the most important laboratories for environmental innovation, research and work in the world. And Rome wants to be at the forefront of this challenge, with new and important projects in which Acea is already playing a leading role, with five ongoing projects involving investments of around 15 million euros for the reuse of purified water for agriculture, production activities and civil uses, and with new projects to be launched in collaboration with Ama and Atac for vehicles and plants, and with the Environment Department for the irrigation of Rome’s parks.
The Department of the Environment of the capital and ISPRA are carrying out more and more monitoring of the wells in the parks in order to check the state of the water table and to find solutions to strengthen reforestation projects, biodiversity, the fight against summer heatwaves or simply the watering service for gardens, plants and urban vegetable gardens.
Together with the companies, we want to promote and encourage all the potential for recovery and reuse within the plants, and to use the water coming from the purifiers for all compatible functions, in order to have certain supplies, which the wells cannot guarantee today due to the state of the water table.
