Italy sits at the intersection of three rising pressures: some of Europe’s highest antibiotic-resistant infection rates, rapidly warming and drying climate patterns in the south, and record-breaking floods in the north. Around 12 000 Italians die each year from drug-resistant bacteria—over a third of all AMR deaths in the EU/EEA. In 2024 Sicily and Sardinia declared drought emergencies after the driest winter on record, while Emilia-Romagna is still rebuilding from two successive flood disasters that pushed rivers 1–1.5 m above normal levels.
These climate swings flush mismanaged plastics from cities and farmland into waterways. Surveys along the Po and Chienti Rivers reveal dense microplastic loads carrying antibiotic-resistant Enterobacterales and other pathogens downstream to the Adriatic. Laboratory work has since confirmed that microplastic biofilms actively accelerate resistance even when no antibiotics are present.
The TULIP team uses adaptive river-to-coast sampling, high-throughput gene sequencing and hydrodynamic modelling to trace these mobile “hotspots” in real time. Results feed directly into co-design workshops with water utilities, farmers and regional health agencies, turning evidence into policies on wastewater upgrades, plastic-catch devices and smart drought-management plans that can be exported across Southern Europe.