The three shallow lakes of Mantua (Upper, Middle and Lower) formed by the Mincio River are today classified by Italian water authorities as sensitive areas, after, in the second half of the 20th century, the hydrologic regime of the lakes was heavily modified, and the influence of industrial activities operating in the 1960s--without much environmental consideration--created a substantial decline in the water quality of the lakes. The City of Mantua is one of the most vital industrial centers of Northern Italy, and development plans are under way, that should approximately double the extension of the urban and industrial area within the next 20 years. This paper deals with estimating the effects of the aforementioned urbanization on the future water quality of the three lakes.

Extreme streamflow nonstationarity has probably attracted more attention than mean streamflow nonstationarity in the assessment of the impacts of climate change on the water cycle. Nonetheless, a significant decrease in mean streamflow could lead to conditions of scarcity of freshwater in the long-term period, seriously compromising the sustainability of the demand for civil, agricultural, and industrial uses. Regional analyses are useful to better characterize an area’s nonstationarity, since a clear trend at a global scale has not been detected yet. In this article, long-term and high-quality series of streamflow discharges observed in five rivers in the Central Italian Alps, including two multicentury series and two new precipitation and streamflow series not analyzed before, are investigated to statistically characterize individual trends of mean annual runoff volumes. Nonparametric pooled statistics are also introduced to assess the regional trend. Additional climatic and nonclimatic factors, namely, precipitation trends and land cover transformations, have also been considered as potential change drivers. Unlike precipitation, runoff volumes show a marked and statistically significant decrease of −1.45 mm/year, which appears to be homogeneous in the region. The land cover transformation analysis presented here revealed extensive woodland expansions of 510 km2 in 2018 out of the 2650 km2 area measured in 1954, representing 38% of the area investigated in this study: this anthropic driver of enhanced hydrologic losses can be recognized as an additional likely cause for the regional runoff volume decrease.

The drinking water distribution system of Cremona, in the north of Italy, was monitored for 6 years\ud (2006–2011) analyzing chlorine dioxide, chlorite, and chlorate concentrations. The software Epanet\ud 2.0 (USEPA) was applied to the distribution system. The mixing zone of the water coming from the\ud two drinking water treatment plants, respectively located to the west and east of the city, was\ud estimated using the software. Propagation of chlorine dioxide, chlorite, and chlorate was simulated\ud with the software. Measured and simulated results were compared. The results of the distribution\ud system monitoring showed a high chlorine dioxide consumption, since residual chlorine\ud concentration was always below 0.12 mg/ L. Chlorite concentration was over 700 μg/L1 for 12–16%\ud of results in the first 2 years, for 48% of results in 2008, and for 1–8% of results from 2009 to 2011. In\ud particular, chlorite exceeded 700 μg/L at points of the network more distant from the treatment\ud plants. Conversely, chlorate concentration was always below 200 μg/L. The mixing zone of the\ud water in the distribution system was determined, and the comparison between measured and\ud simulated concentrations showed the usefulness of the model for predicting disinfectant and\ud by-product propagation in the distribution system

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