Water Quality in High-Altitude Facilities: Outcomes of Investigating a Mountain Territory of Northern Italy

Igiene e Sanità Pubblica 2025; 97 (4): 180-191

Alice Prete ¹, Carla Palma ², Erica Bino ³, Vincenzo Marcotrigiano ^4,*, Alessandro Citiulo ², Igor Campigotto ⁵, Fabio Surace ⁶, Alessia Tabacchi ², Monica Tissi ², Ilaria Gecchele ², Anna Endrizzi ², Giovanni Andrea Sava ², Mattia Manzi ⁵, Damiano Comin ⁷, Andrea Gazzetta ⁷, Alberto Lovat ⁸, Osvalda De Giglio ⁹, Maria Teresa Montagna ⁹  Sandro Cinquetti ⁴

Affiliations

¹ Innovation and Development, Directorate of Health Professions, Local Health Authority “ULSS 1 Dolomiti”, 32100 Belluno, Italy; 
² Food Hygiene and Nutrition Service, Prevention Department, Local Health Authority “ULSS 1 Dolomiti”, 32100 Belluno, Italy; 
³ Epidemiology Service, Prevention Department, Local Health Authority “ULSS 1 Dolomiti”, 32100 Belluno, Italy;
⁴ Prevention Department, Local Health Authority “ULSS 1 Dolomiti”, 32100 Belluno, Italy;
⁵ Hygiene and Public Health Service, Prevention Department, Local Health Authority “ULSS 1 Dolomiti”, 32100 Belluno, Italy;
⁶ Prevention Hygiene and Safety in the Workplaces Service, Prevention Department, Local Health Authority “ULSS 1 Dolomiti”, 32100 Belluno, Italy;
⁷ Veterinary Service for Hygiene of Food of Animal Origin and their Derivatives, Prevention Department, Local Health Authority “ULSS 1 Dolomiti”, 32100 Belluno, Italy;
⁸ Prevention of Non-communicable Diseases, Screening Programs and Health Promotion Service, Prevention Department, Local Health Authority “ULSS 1 Dolomiti”, 32100 Belluno, Italy;
⁹ Interdisciplinary Department of Medicine, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, 70124 Bari, Italy.

* Correspondence: vincenzo.marcotrigiano@aulss1.veneto.it (V.M.); Tel.: +39-0437-516932

ABSTRACT

The mountain area preparing to host the 2026 Olympic Games will benefit from an unprecedented increase in tourism, requiring local health authorities to perform additional checks to verify that the local accommodation facilities meet hygiene requirements. The focus of this investigation were the huts that, due to their intrinsic characteristics and location, cannot always access drinking water from the public aqueduct but are often fed by private sources, snowfields or rainwater. With the aim of improving the quality of these mountain huts, the microbiological quality of water intended for human consumption was investigated, and the analytical results were compared according to the relative types of supply. A statistical analysis was conducted on 41 huts that met the inclusion criteria, proving that the water drawn from the public aqueduct was of better microbiological quality than water from other sources (p-value: 0.016).

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