Italy: The Longest River Is Drying Up
Italy is suffering from the worst drought in 70 years.
The 650 km long Po flows from the Alps in the northwest, feeding several Italian regions before emptying into the Adriatic Sea.
The unusually low water levels are having severe consequences for the production of vegetables and fruit, hydroelectric power, drinking water, commercial shipping, and fishing.
The drought is taking its toll not only on people but also on wildlife: environmentalists have warned that the habitats of fish, frogs, and birds in the wetlands along the Po are in serious danger. Farmers are pumping ever greater quantities of water from the river onto their fields.
The problem of drought and water scarcity, which had already weighed heavily on Italy last year, threatens to become a major crisis this summer. Environmentalists are urging the government in Rome to take measures to overhaul the outdated water supply network. They are calling for stricter penalties for those who waste or pollute water.
In some areas, it has not rained for 110 days. The drought, which has afflicted the country's longest river following one of the driest winters on record, shows no signs of easing. Leaking water pipes are causing significant supply shortages across northern Italy.
The situation is so acute that the heads of government of Lombardy, Piedmont, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna announced on 16 June 2022 that they would request a state of emergency to be declared for their regions. Some towns in the north must be supplied with water by truck, and hundreds of municipalities have been asked to ration their drinking water supplies in order to restore reservoir levels.
In 25 towns in the province of Bergamo, drinking water is already being transported by tanker trucks to replenish reservoirs. The same is already happening in a hundred towns in the Piedmont region.
The drought is attributable to unusually high temperatures, low precipitation, and far less snowfall during the winter — particularly in the southern Alps — which in turn has led to reduced snowmelt feeding the Po.
The river's water level is currently up to 2.7 meters below zero and thus well below the average for June, while the flow rate into the sea has dropped to 300 cubic meters per second – a fifth of the average value for this time of year.
The Po Valley was already struck by droughts in 2007, 2012, and 2017, whose increasing frequency is, according to scientists, further evidence of the climate crisis.
«This drought is unique in history due to the combination of two anomalies – the lack of rain and the elevated temperatures, which are directly linked to climate change«, said Luca Mercalli, the president of the Italian Meteorological Society.
Mercalli, who lives in a mountain town in Piedmont, added: «In the Alps it feels like the end of July, water is becoming scarce because there is very little snow left, and within a week there will be no reserves remaining. We recently measured the snow depth at 3,000 meters altitude – normally there are two meters of snow in June, but this year there is not only no snow, flowers are already blooming.»
«The situation will only get worse, as heat and drought are forecast for the coming months.«
The Po Valley is an important economic region for Italy, home to industrial centers such as Turin, Milan, and Brescia as well as a wide range of sectors, and it is one of Europe's most important agricultural zones.
«In the past, rainfall was evenly distributed over 10 months; in recent years it has come in two or three intense bursts over a shorter period, turning the river into a torrent«, he said.
«Today we are worried about the lack of water, which serves not only farmers for irrigation but also for energy generation and human consumption – in this area we obtain drinking water from the Alpine aquifers, but in some areas it is also drawn from the Po and treated.«
In Boretto, further along the Po, a man who normally swims across the river every day was able to walk to the middle of it last week.
According to the Italian farmers' association CIA, fruit and vegetable production in the Po Valley will decline by 30 to 40 percent.
