The Italian environmental organization Legambiente has investigated the water qualities of the sea and the lakes in Italy in the frame of the two campaigns Goletta Verde and Goletta dei laghi. The results are alarming: the Peninsula’s sea and lakes are not in the best of health this summer.

They are threatened by poor purification, illegal discharges, pollution, but also by the acceleration of the climate crisis, which, in particular, with heavy rainfall, is putting purification systems under pressure.

36 % of all control points with contaminations above the limits

In the time period from June to early August water samples were taken from 394 points in 19 regions. In total, 36 % of these samples exhibited contamination values „above the limit”, with 101 points characterized as “highly polluted” and 39 as “polluted”. The state of the sea is considered as of particular concern. This is due to the fact that on average there is one polluted point every 76 km of coastline. There the trend of points above the limit is slowloy increasing from 31 % in2022, 36 % in 2023 to 37 % this year.

Points of inflow into the sea are critical

River mouths, canals and watercourses that flow into the sea or lake are confirmed as the critical points. In fact, 47% of the total number of samples taken (185 out of 394) by the Goletta team were taken at river mouths, and in 59% of cases the assessment was ‘over the limit’ (109 out of 185). On the other hand, the results of the samples taken in lake and sea waters were better, both in areas with a greater influx of bathers and near critical points: only 14% of the samples taken there received a negative judgement based on the analysis by the campaigns (30 out of 208).

18 special sites with historically low water quality

In this year’s campaigns, primary 18 special sites, of which 14 are located along the coast and four at the lakes Maggiore, Orta, Trasimeno and Bolsena, are monitored by Goletta Verde and Goletta dei laghi. These are historically critical points where Legambiente, between March and June, repeated an average of 3 additional samplings to the official one planned during the passage of the campaigns. Out of 45 samples, 32 along the coast and 13 in the lakes, 69% showed concentrations above the legal limits even in the months preceding the summer period. Legambiente will assess whether there are grounds to complain to the competent authorities and ask for more monitoring and controls.