In many parts of Italy, particularly in the South, it has become ever more difficult to meet the water demand. The recent years of drought and the constant increase of water demand for the civil sector have made irrigation supply more problematic. Wastewater reuse could represent a viable solution to meet water demand. The focus of this paper is on the regulation problems, hampering the development of wastewater reuse for irrigation, and on the potentials for reuse, particularly in Southern Italy. Planned exploitation of municipal wastewater could help meeting the irrigation water demand particularly in Southern Italy, where farmers have been practising uncontrolled wastewater reuse for a long time. In Northern and Central Italy, where available water resources generally meet water needs for different purposes, wastewater reuse could play an important role in controlling the pollution of water bodies. Despite the fact that Italian legislation is extremely strict and outdated, for several years in some regions, such as Sicily, wastewater reuse systems have been in operation; furthermore, several projects of wastewater reuse are currently in progress.
A lysimeter investigation has been carried out with the aim of quantifying the removal of some contaminants during wastewater percolation through the soil. The lysimeters were irrigated with untreated municipal wastewater. In general volcanic sand showed higher treatment ability than sedimentary soil. Percolation through sandy volcanic soil columns resulted in removal of 84 to 98% of applied COD and of 90 to 96% of applied suspended solids.
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