This week, Time explores the “invisible networks”, forgotten by the general public because they are too distant or common on a daily basis and which, through a crisis, have become a glaring issue.
The authorities of Ferrara still do not rule out condemning the taps of their inhabitants at night. Banning the use of drinking water following sunset would allow reservoirs in the city, in western Emilia-Romagna, to fill up. The measure had been considered in July, before a few drops of rain came to wet the dry ground since the beginning of spring and to feed a little the current of the Po, the largest river in the country. These discreet precipitations had given a little hope to the farmers and the Ferrarese, accustomed to using and drinking without limit the water supplied directly by the river flowing less than ten kilometers further north.