by Andrea Tramonte
It is difficult to talk about a simple emergency. The situation is now structural, in light of the consequences of climate changes in the Mediterranean. The countryside suffers from the Drought and the serious water crisis which particularly affected the Eastern Sardinia, between Bassa Gallura, Baronia and Ogliastra. The restrictions due to the difficulties in the reservoirs of Macaronis And Posada have led to a rationing of water resources, favoring civil, drinking water use, and penalizing irrigation itself: which means rural economy, agriculture and livestock farming, without water. An emblematic case is that of a farmer Tertenia who recently found himself – together with numerous other colleagues in the area – unable to give water to his herds of cattle and calves. As he said Coldiretti, to sustain his animals the shepherd needs about 6 thousand liters of water a day and could barely, with makeshift means, carry a small part of it with several daily trips. There Todde council will guarantee the approximately 70 suffering farmers to be able to give water to the animals thanks to the use of tankers in collaboration with Civil Protection and Forestas, but the situation gives a good idea of the serious crisis in which the countryside finds itself at the moment. And which will be worsened during the summer, awaiting a desirable return of rains in autumn.
“The big accused is always agriculture – says a Sardinia Post the director of Coldiretti Sardinia, Luca Saba -, it is said that you consume too much water but it is important to establish a principle: you don’t ‘consume’ it, you use it. And he returns it to food. And what he doesn’t use ends up in the aquifer.” Saba reels off some data: “In Sardinia we consume 800 million cubic meters of water per year, more than half for the irrigation sector, 250 million for drinking water and 50 million for industrial use. But from that figure for the countryside we need to remove more than 50 percent that we lose due to old networks: as soon as the water leaves the dam it is already lost. This means that we could recover another 250 million and use it for the population or even for agriculture if we made a big plan to restructure the networks.” This is what the agricultural association has been asking for for some time, with the proposal to finance with the Pnrr a massive and definitive intervention plan for the replacement of the networks. Many of which, Saba explains, “contain asbestos. These are interventions that also concern health and environmental safety.”
But the effects of climate change have been known for some time and we are experiencing them daily: higher temperatures, intense rainfall concentrated only in certain areas, extreme weather events. “The western area is smiling because the basins are full, the eastern area is crying because it hasn’t rained – comments Saba -. If we could bring water from one area to another we would be talking about a different situation. The Thyrsus it poured into the sea because it was full while the Lower Flumendosa it is under more than 200 million cubic meters of water. We need to complete water conservation processes, strengthen dams and interconnection canals, and take care of outgoing networks. We know that the situation could get worse in the foreseeable future, so we need to work to prevent water from being wasted and focus on transversal connection works that allow the basins to act as vessels in case one of them is full.” But it is clear that various aspects can and should be improved even in work processes. As in irrigation, with a more rational and targeted management of water resources, now considering water as a finite good.
“But the discussion is connected to the previous one – Saba specifies -. If the water is closed for agriculture and there is no income security, investments cannot be made. Of course we need to focus on localized irrigation instead of sprinkler irrigation, where possible. But the innovations must be based on a framework that foresees the modification of the networks. And then we need to prepare specific tenders for the water saving, which the PSRs do not have.” Now the next step will be to proclaim a state of natural disaster in the area. There are no estimates of losses yet but they will be high. In the meantime, however, immediate refreshments will arrive with tankers to quench the animals’ thirst and help the countryside. “An element of closeness of the institutions is to make the immediacy of the intervention felt – concludes Saba -. We had asked the Todde Council to work to simplify the procedures and special powers were granted in derogation to the Basin Authority to allow us to cut the time. For this we are grateful. When someone is sick and needs water you have to give it to them immediately, otherwise it’s the end.”
