29.06-01.07.2023 - "The water resource: from the Dolomites to the Sea"

Water is a precious, irreplaceable but not infinite resource. It is fundamental to life on our Planet: indispensable for all living things (animals, humans and plants) and necessary to keep our bodies healthy. Unfortunately, its availability is not infinite, it is a limited resource, and this causes a number of critical issues on a local and global scale. For this reason, among the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) defined in 2015 by the 150 international leaders who met at the United Nations to contribute to global development, promote human well-being and protect the environment is "Ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all." The issues of access, reduced quantities available are compounded by the fact that water contamination is increasing as a direct result of industrial water waste and inadequate waste elimination. What's more, climate change is increasingly causing extreme weather phenomena, such as droughts and floods. Veneto is an area still rich in this primary resource even though it is seeing its reserves represented by glaciers drastically diminishing; being aware of this and preserving it is a duty to all humanity. It is necessary, however, even where there are no problems of access or availability, to ensure due respect: the decrease in the size of a glacier, the drying up of a resurgence, the lowering of an aquifer, the pollution of a rural well and of the sea are now unbearable events for an environment, already stressed by countless daily attacks.

The right path to pursue seems to be the one mapped out in the European context where we set out to ensure: the protection and improvement of the status of aquatic ecosystems, as well as the terrestrial ecosystems and wetlands that depend on them; sustainable water use based on the long-term protection of available water resources; enhanced protection of the aquatic environment enabling its improvement, including through the adoption of specific measures for the gradual reduction of discharges, emissions and losses of priority substances, and the cessation or phasing out of discharges, emissions and losses of hazardous substances; the halting and gradual reduction of groundwater pollution; and an active contribution to the mitigation of the effects of floods and droughts. With reference to the effects that climate change is having on water resources we recall that with the Glasgow Pact, signed at COP26 in Scotland, the global community once again highlighted the seriousness of the climate problem we are facing, establishing a milestone toward the process of adaptation and reduction of climate-changing emissions. The agreement also emphasizes the importance of acting both globally and locally on climate adaptation, paying particular attention to the protection and redevelopment of ecosystems and the involvement of local communities, even going beyond the administrative boundaries characterizing local governments. These are all aspects that the Municipality of Venice feels the urgency of and that with the Climate Plan have been declined for the specificities of our territory. We strongly count on the collaboration between the different subjects, public and private in different capacities involved, which imposes the challenge for the protection of the water and climate resource for Venice and its territory "from the source to the mouth," in an inseparable unicum, as well as on the active contribution that the entire local community will be able to give so that the sustainable management of the water resource and climate adaptation will find humus starting from individual behaviors in every household, business and public space.