The water crisis, which includes drought, floods, and a lack of recycling, is taking a toll on Italians: it now costs €227 per capita per year, more than double the European average (€112 per inhabitant), equivalent to €13.4 billion, as if the country's economy shut down for two and a half days every year. This is underscored in the TEHA Water Value Community's 2026 White Paper, currently in its seventh edition, which shows an Italy increasingly susceptible to water stress, resulting in insufficient or excessive water at the wrong time, as well as collection and management challenges. The damage caused by the water issue peaked in 2022, at €284 per inhabitant in a single year, totaling €16.7 billion. Spain (€256 per inhabitant) and Slovenia (over €1,600 per inhabitant) were the only countries to register a higher per capita cost. This situation is expected to worsen, according to the most recent United Nations report (Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond Our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era), which announced the start of the era of "global water bankruptcy" in 2026: a sufficient number of critical systems have passed the point at which they can be restored to previous levels, and crossing this threshold will significantly alter the planet's water risk, causing cascading effects across communities. The water crisis, which culminated in Italy in 2025 with more than 1,100 episodes of heavy rainfall and 139 urban floods (compared to 45 heavy rainfall events and 3 urban floods per year in the early 2000s), has had a substantial impact on the production system, beginning with agriculture. Over the recent decade, Italian agricultural production has decreased by 7.8%, with maxima in the most water-intensive crops. Climate change-related agricultural loss totaled €8.5 billion in 2024 alone. According to the TEHA report, water has an impact on roughly 2 million firms throughout their supply chain. In 2024, the extended water cycle, which comprises management, technology suppliers, and land reclamation consortia, added €11.2 billion in value, which increased to €31 billion when indirect and induced impacts were taken into account.