Italian Policy Framework for Water in Agriculture - Water and Agriculture: Sustainability, Markets and Policies - page 337

2. National legislation and competencies for the water system

A weak point of the Italian irrigation system is the complexity of the institutional
roles of the several institutions and agencies involved. This point appears so important to
slow down the necessary reform process.
First of all, it is necessary to underline that water use and water protection have
always proceeded apart, considered as two separate fields until the end of 1990. 16
The first important laws that regulated water use are from 1930. In this period, water
was seen as a productive factor for increasing crop productivity and as a development
factor for improving life quality (most of civil, industrial and irrigation infrastructures
have been built before and after the Second World War).
This approach was unchanged until 1970-1980. After this period, new aims became
important for public opinion and at the political level: water became a public and limited
resource to defend.
In this context, several laws have been made from 1990 onwards, determining a new
arrangement of competencies in the water system. New legislation has been passed
regarding soil defence (Law 183/89) and water management (Law 36/94). These laws
strongly reformed the field, but their application has had, and it still has, some difficulties
in several Italian regions.
L egislation concerning water quality protection has been developed in the last two
decades both at European and Italian level. From 1980 and after the Treaty on European
Union (Maastricht Treaty), numerous European Directives have been passed with respect
to International Conventions or to establish common quality standards for specific water
uses (drinkable, human consumption, bathing, dangerous substances, nitrate pollution,
etc).
Moreover, European policy has tended towards an increasing integration of
productive and environmental policies. At the national level, several laws have been
passed to apply these European Directives between 1980 and 1990.
In 1999, a new Water Framework Law was passed, Decree 152/99. It reassumes the
evolution (directives application) and the integration between productive and
environmental policies. The main aim of the decree is the “water integrated qualitative-
quantitative protection”: it considers excessive water withdrawals a very important factor
for water environmental alteration. T herefore, the decree involves agriculture directly, in
terms of pollutants release and exploitation for irrigation and livestock production.
In particular, agriculture is included in: directive 91/676/CEE, relative to water
protection from nitrate pollution produced by agriculture; directives 76/464/CEE and
80/68/CEE, concerning protection from pollution generated by dangerous substances.
With respect to those directives, Italian Institutions defined the areas with nitrate
pollution, while the census about dangerous substances has not been completed and
monitoring, has not started yet.

16. Zucaro, R. (ed.) (2001).