Regulatory framework of sanitation policy and water quality. A parallel between Brazil and Italy

The quality of water bodies is directly related to the coverage and efficiency of the Sewage systems. This article intends to make a parallel between the situation in Italy and in Brazil by the analysis of the existing environmental legislation and public policies of investment in sewerage sector. 144 Italian regulatory is still lacking of full acceptance of European Water Framework Directive 2000/60/CE. Particularly Article 16 of the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) sets out a “Strategy against pollution of water” outlining the steps to be taken. The first step of the strategy was the establishment of a First list of priority substances under the Water Framework Directive. Various monitoring programs have evidenced the occurrence of growing concentrations of new emergent pollutants that compromise the qualitative state of rivers, lakes and sea. A first estimate of works for the italian wastewater treatment plants improving efficiencies for facing of new priority pollutants is more than 3,5 billion of Euros as whole. One of the problem for a large number of these WWTPs enhancing is the lack of area for operational basins enlargement. After about 10 years of discussions, the Brazilian Parliament adopted federal law 11,445/07 that constitutes the new regulatory framework for the sanitation sector in the country. Now be called basic sanitation service composed of four components: water supply, sewerage, solid waste management and stewardship of urban stormwater drainage. The low level of investments and the lack of a regulatory framework led to increasing deficits of sanitation, to the extent that the Brazilian population increased in urban areas, increase that wasn’t followed by coverage of services. The determination of deficits suffers due to multiple data sources are available as: • Censos 2000 e 2010 • PNSB 2000 e 2008 • PNAD 2001 a 2008 • SNIS 2007 • SISAGUA • SIG Cisternas • SEDEC • Ministério da Integração Nacional Besides these sources of data from federal agencies, which are sometimes inconsistent and dispersed, there are other States which also cause differences of information, as the case may be. This complex situation of data source, you can get some values of the deficit: There is no information about the service coverage of urban drainage, because there is not a general register of this grace practically urban infrastructure throughout the country. There are few municipalities that come with registration. To take forward these challenges to achieve the universalization of the provision of services throughout the country, the sources of resources are: • Donor Funds resources – FGTS e FAT – Costly. • OGU – not costly. • International Loans (BIRD e BID, for example); • Operators’ own resources. According to the Ministry of Cities, in 2009, were committed R$ 6.6 billion, but disbursed R$ 3.5 billion.