Master-planning actions and solutions to water scarcity in Pesaro province: preparatory studies

Since the early 2000s the Mediterranean area have seen an increase in the frequency of air arriving from Africa, bringing heat waves, higher average temperatures, low rainfall and consequently the increase of water scarcity. To manage the scarcity of water resources, monitoring systems are currently used to know the amount of resource actually available. However, in a forecast of increasingly extreme climatic phenomena, such systems may no longer be sufficient. It is therefore necessary to start structuring more articulated adaptation strategies to face the challenge that climate scenarios reserve for us. The purpose of this study, carried out on the territory of ATO1 in the north of the Marche Region, is to carry out an analysis of resource needs in a context of decreasing rainfall and increasing temperatures, in order to better understand how much "time" remains before the situation becomes irreversible. With the integrated water service managers and public entities help the captured discharges from wells, springs and superficial derivations were analysed both seasonally and annually, evaluating the volumes that enter in the water purifiers and the volumes that go directly into the aqueduct network. Then these volumes were compared with the maximum authorized discharges and the contracted discharges, evaluating all the needs, divided in macro-categories. Finally, also the wastewater treatment plants fluxes were considered, both volumes and concentrations, in order to evaluate if it is possible the agricultural water reuse, according to the legislation. This whole study was also analysed from a forecasting point of view through weather and climate assessments.