The national expenditure for waste, wastewater and water resources management services jointly considered amounted in Italy, in 2009, to 34,730 million euros (2.3% of GDP); this figure is broken down by environmental domain as follows: 21,514 million euros for waste management (1.4% of GDP), 9,516 million euros for water resources management (0.6% of GDP) and 3,700 million euros for wastewater management (0.2% of GDP).
The investments made by specialised producers have shown varied trends from 1997 to 2009, resulting in a decrease of public investments at the end of the period in all three domains and an increase of private investments mainly in the waste and water resources management domains. These trends highlight a privatization process in the production of the environmental services at issue, more clearly observed in the second half of the period.