| On October the 3rd 2014, a one-day Workshop on Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR)
experiences in Italy took place at the GEOFLUID fair in Piacenza. It was organized within
the framework of the EIP AG 128 - MAR Solutions - Managed Aquifer Recharge Strategies
and Actions and the EU FPVII MARSOL. The event aimed at showcasing present
experiences on MAR in Italy while at the same time starting a network among all the
Institutions involved. In this contribution, we discuss the state of MAR application in Italy
and summarize the outcomes of that event.
In Italy aquifer recharge is traditionally applied unintentionally, by increasing riverbank
filtration or because of excess irrigation. A certain interest for artificial recharge of aquifers
arose at the end of the ’70s and the beginning of the ’80s and tests have been carried out in
Tuscany, Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia. During the last years some projects on aquifer
recharge were co-financed by the European Commission mainly through the LIFE program.
Nearly all of them use the terminology of artificial recharge instead of MAR. They
are:
- TRUST (Tool for regional - scale assessment of groundwater storage improvement in
adaptation to climate change, LIFE07 ENV/IT/000475; Marsala 2014);
- AQUOR (Implementation of a water saving and artificial recharging participated
strategy for the quantitative groundwater layer rebalance of the upper Vicenza’s plain - LIFE
2010 ENV/IT/380; Mezzalira et al. 2014);
- WARBO (Water re-born - artificial recharge: innovative technologies for the
sustainable management of water resources, LIFE10 ENV/IT/000394; 2014).
While the TRUST project dealt in general with aquifer recharge, AQUOR and WARBO
focused essentially on small scale demonstration plants.
Within the EU FPVII-ENV-2013 MARSOL project (Demonstrating Managed Aquifer
Recharge as a Solution to Water Scarcity and Drought; 2014), a dedicated monitoring and
decision support system is under development to manage recharge at a large scale riverbank
filtration plant, worth 15 Mm3/year in Lucca (Tuscany; Borsi et al. 2014). In 2014, the
Regional Authority of Emilia Romagna started a pilot on the Marecchia River fan using a
recharge basin to alleviate water scarcity in the Rimini area as results of drought periods
(Severi et al. 2014).
To apply MAR techniques on a large scale is of particular interest the possibility to
allow farmer’s associations or drainage consortiums to play an important role in
storing excess rainfall water in aquifers. Few hectares of land in rural areas may be
dedicated to MAR plants, transforming a traditionally water consumer sector in one
preserving it - opportunities are then linked to the provision of water related ecosystem
services.
Aquifer recharge is allowed in Italy only since September 2013, but still a regulatory
framework is missing. Hopefully, this regulatory scheme will benefit from previous and
on-going experiences. Dissemination of MAR scientific findings and technical know-how
among governing authorities and the general public is crucial for the application
of MAR techniques. Fundings for setting up new MAR plants may be available
at national level. At the same time, lack of knowledge at intermediate governing
bodies level is preventing the application of these techniques (i.e. building of small
dams is favored although less convenient by several points of view in respect of
MAR plants). Finally, it is of outmost importance to define which are the financial
instruments to sustain these water infrastructures, so to guarantee not only their
set up, but also routinely operations, opening as such a new market in the water
sector.
Acknowledgments
This paper is co-financed within the framework of the EU FP7-ENV-2013-WATER-INNO-DEMO
MARSOL (Grant Agreement n. 619120).
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