Calabria has asked the government to recognize the national state of emergency due to the serious water deficit that has been ongoing for weeks. The president of the Sicily region Renato Schifani he made it known that he is giving up his holidays to monitor the situation. The association of water consortia - ANBI - has raised the alarm of "No water day” for mid-August. All three pieces of news give the updated dimension of the drought emergency that has gripped Italy for weeks. The government's control room has done little so far and next August 15th will be the first day without water for agriculture. The date highlight of the 2024 summer season will be remembered as the worst due to the effects of climate change on a very fragile country.
There is not a single day danger to health and the agricultural economy, there will be future consequences. The Italian conformation already has specificity which make it more vulnerable than other countries, climate variations only accentuate the risks. Unfortunately, the ability to adopt countermeasures is modest. Burnt soil hardens, becoming less permeable and thus accentuating the hydrogeological risk, the experts explained.
There is an alarm from North to South
The note issued by the reclamation consortia also extends the concerns to Mediterranean, hot as ever. For the next week, the water temperature will not drop below 30 degrees even at night. In many places in the Ionian and Tyrrhenian Sea the phenomenon is felt even without scientific confirmation, just dive. In the past few days there have been fleeting rains in the North, but they have not changed the picture. Heat is not incompatible with extreme events, as seen in the agricultural economy of Alpine regions. There is crisis and concern among breeders and farmers. Sand from the desert has also arrived in the mountains.
“Everywhere the reclamation consortia are working to make the hydraulic network as receptive as possible, but its inadequacy in the face of the violence of weather events is well known” he says Francesco Vincenzo, President of ANBI. Finally, the scorching heat is sparking fires in various parts of the country and 40 square kilometers of forested areas have been burned. Resist it is the best response that comes from the territories, but it is not infinite. Swimming in a warm sea can be done, but denying water to families for days, depriving the fields of the main resource, stalling on when and how to build infrastructures, reservoirs, networks is truly unbearable. And flaunt the money of Pnrr it is of no use if it takes years before seeing them employed.
