The use of reclaimed water for agriculture in Sicily, Italy

The reuse of reclaimed water especially for agricultural irrigation, is becoming a common and rapidly increasing practice in South Europe regions, notwithstanding law restrictions and local acceptance. In Italy, WW reuse is regulated by a quite restrictive approach (Ministry Decree, M.D. n. 185/03), especially for some chemical compounds and microbiological parameters; this approach has led some difficulties in promoting WW reuse. The main aim of the present paper is the evaluation of the potential of the wastewater reuse in Sicily, the largest Mediterranean island, where the agriculture sector has a lack of water resources for irrigation. In order to achieve the objective, a Geographical Information System (GIS) at regional level was built to quantify and locate the available WW volumes. In particular, the characteristics of the wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) (location, altitude, person equivalent, treatment level, working state, treated volume …) were integrated, through the GIS, with data on irrigation district areas (surface, location, altimetry, potential evapotranspiration, water needs, available water resources, distance to the nearest WWTP,…). Moreover, in order to evaluate the Italian legislation to the wastewater reuse for agricultural irrigation, the water quality of different treatment effluents, were analysed on the basis of both the Italian law and the WHO guidelines. The microbiological quality standards of Italian law were too restricted. Without a deep revision of Italian legislation, wastewater reuse for irrigation in small and medium communities will not sustainable.