It's unbelievable. Of all the water put into the 380 kilometers of distribution network in the city every day, over a third is thrown away. Translated: every day we throw away over twenty-one million liters of water because of leaky pipes. Estimating an average daily consumption of just under 300 liters per day per person, we are talking about a volume capable of satisfying the water needs of over seventy thousand people every day. All the people of Cagliari pay the bill, without distinction, because it is drinking water that has already undergone an expensive purification process. Welcome to Cagliari, the city where the water network literally leaks from all sides. The old and worn pipes open and, when this happens, entire neighborhoods remain for hours, at best, more often days, without water in the taps. Without considering the water that is lost.
The inconveniences
It is true, it must be said, the problem occurs much less than in the past (but still too often) after Abbanoa is implementing a plan for the general remediation of the entire city network. "We estimate losses of a third of the water introduced into the network," explains Gianluca Panduccio, head of the complex organizational unit of Abbanoa. "The fight against losses," which is a national problem, "represents one of the main objectives of Abbanoa and the investments in the field are a testimony," emphasizes the president of the board of directors, Giuseppe Sardu.
This gigantic problem of pipes that repeatedly break is due to the terrible conditions of the pipes, especially in the final section of the network, the one that brings the service to the taps of the homes of the people of Cagliari. These are the ailments of age: for this reason, more and more often some pipes break, causing sudden flooding and consequently the streets are closed to traffic. "Every year, the Abbanoa teams guarantee on average about 900 maintenance interventions that include the banal repair of a water leak, the efficiency of systems or the complete replacement of sections of pipes", explains the general manager of Abbanoa, Stefano Sebastio.
The dispersion
The biggest problem is that of losses. It is linked to the specter of drought, which for this year, after the rains of the past few weeks, leaves us calm. "There is no risk of water restrictions, nor fortunately will there not be. A danger that we did not have before, much less today after the recent rains", says Gianluca Panduccio. But in the reservoirs there is always the danger that the level will fall below the "minimum" and then the eye falls there again, to what happens underground. The dispersion of the water network: that is, how much water is lost from the pipes not reaching its final destination. As mentioned, the first to pay the consequences are the families of Cagliari who, in turn, complain about habitual irregularities in the water supply. But we all pay the economic damage, because it is drinking water that has already undergone an expensive purification process. "We are already preparing pressure regulation systems that allow us to reduce pressure where it is not necessary and ensure that the networks are less stressed," explains Panduccio, head of the organizational unit of Abbanoa.
«A very sick person»
In terms of water networks, Cagliari has been like a patient who has been ill for many years. "When I was president of the Area Authority", until the mid-2000s, what is now Egas, "we had 800 million euros available to develop an area plan for works", which specifically addressed leaks and purification, explains Giuseppe Farris, municipal councilor for CiviCa 2024. "About ten years after that plan was written, many interventions still had to be carried out. If today we still have this serious problem of leaks, it means that what has been lacking is not resources. The problem is the management of all these years of Abbanoa, a giant on feet of clay that does not have the necessary management and organizational capacity".
Mauro Madeddu