Presentation of the national MIPAAF water saving strategy, territorial protection, fight against hydrogeological instability

An imposing programming, for resources invested, impact of the construction sites started, the territories involved: that of the national strategy for water saving, territorial protection, the fight against hydrogeological instability of the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies illustrated this morning by the European Policies Department and international and for the Rural Development of Mipaaf in the presence of Minister Teresa Bellanova.

Divided into the two years 2018-2019 and 2020, in the first two years the Strategy has funded sixty-seven projects of national importance in the sector of reclamation and water saving in agriculture for a total of 629 million euros through the National Rural Development Program (PSRN); the Development and Cohesion Fund; the Budget Law (strategic infrastructures) 2017 which established the Fund for strategic infrastructures.

All in the execution phase: the immediate building site was in fact one of the conditions for participation in the selection process, which allowed the beneficiaries, largely of the Reclamation Consortia, to be immediately operational.

In 2020, starting from the next few weeks, an important new tranche of interventions is underway, for around € 500 million and the realization of 52 projects, thanks also to the important work of attracting resources carried out by the Mipaaf in recent months.

The National Strategy illustrated this morning also includes the Irrigation Investment Database and the National Information System for the management of water resources in agriculture. Created in 2018 by CREA in collaboration with the Regions, the Database, the objective of the Database is to support in the widest possible way the programming of interventions aimed at reducing risks in agriculture, both in relation to water scarcity and instability. Also through the connection with the national information system for the management of water resources in agriculture (SIGRIAN), also managed by CREA, the single national reference database for the collection of data and information on irrigation use of water on a national scale , also important in the definition of certification models on sustainability, in particular as regards the use of water resources (so-called water footprint).

"As illustrated this morning," Minister Bellanova said in her concluding speech, "a substantial part of the funds used for the implementation of the projects comes from that Infrastructure Fund established with the 2017 Budget Law, which not surprisingly identified precisely in the infrastructural data in our country one of the points, if not the most relevant and strategic, on which to intervene without delay. It was the same logic that had informed and given birth to two extraordinary intuitions that were unfortunately erased: Casa Italia and Italia Sicura.

Extraordinary because, in the face of such evident climate changes and the often devastating results, with the frosts in the south and the drought in the north, and the pervasiveness of the hydrogeological instability, we cannot think of acting only when the disaster has happened.

For this reason, by virtue of the foresight that characterized those structures that have proved to be a success, what we present today I can rightly read in that furrow, further confirmation of the rightness and value.

When we talk about Italy shock, the proposals that we will present to our government partners in this month, we say: we have the resources, we have the projects that can be immediately built, we work to put both ones quickly and well to value. A country where a public work of even a few kilometers takes years to see the light is not civilized, with an enormous cost for citizens and their quality of life.

The dozens of works under construction that we are illustrating today demonstrate that it is possible. Here we have done it and we are continuing to do so, even with a strong ability to attract resources to continue the program started, which translates not only, as is evident, in achieving the objectives identified, contrasting the hydrogeological instability and reducing risks related to water scarcity, but above all in a new safeguard and protection of the landscape ".

Presentation of the national MIPAAF water saving strategy, territorial protection, fight against hydrogeological instability

| Economics |