In view of World Environment Day which this year has as its theme “restoration of the territory, desertification and resilience to drought”, Legambiente takes stock of the situation with new data from its Città Clima In Italia Observatory and underlines that «It is now increasingly drought emergency. From 2020 to mid-May 2024, 81 damages due to prolonged drought were recorded in the Peninsula. Lombardy (15), Piedmont (14) and Sicily (9) are the most affected regions in recent years followed by Sardinia (6), Emilia-Romagna (6) and Trentino-Alto-Adige (6)”.
Looking back over the years, Legambiente recalls that «2022 was the year most marked by a prolonged drought, which particularly affected the centre-north. For example, in Piedmont the anomaly compared to average rainfall was 41%. A situation that continued until the first months of 2023, only to then see a strong wave of rainfall concentrated in some areas and which was also repeated from the beginning of 2024″.
According to a study published in Nature Communicationsclimate change is making these rapid transitions from one extreme of precipitation to the opposite, from drought to floods and vice versa, more intense and frequent.
Climate change is also accelerating the risk of desertification in entire regions such as Sicily.
The European Commission has warned, based on conservative estimates, that without effective preventive action on climate risks, damage from floods, heat waves, droughts, forest fires, crop losses or diseases could reduce European GDP by around 7% by the end of the century. Furthermore, according to the provisions of the National Climate Adaptation Plan, launched at the end of 2023 by the Meloni Government, in Italy a reduction in the value of agricultural production of 12.5 billion euros is estimated in 2050 in a climate scenario with climate-altering emissions halved by 2050 and zero by 2080.
For the Green Swan «We need rapid, concrete and integrated interventions that can no longer be put off» and indicates to the Meloni government three initiatives to best deal with the problem of drought: «1) a single direction be reconstituted by the District Basin Authorities, to know availability, real consumption, potential demand and to define updated water balances. 2) we need an integrated national strategy at river basin level, which pushes for the implementation of new and modern practices and measures to reduce water demand and avoid waste. With them we understand the savings in civil uses through the reduction of losses and consumption but above all in agricultural uses also through an intelligent remodulation of the regional programming tools of the new CAP, to make them capable of directing farmers’ choices towards crops and agri-food systems less water demanding and more efficient irrigation methods. 3) it is essential to restore all those practices that allow water to be retained in the territory as much as possible and to encourage actions to restore the ecological functionality of the territory and restore ecosystem services. At the same time, we need to promote systems for the recovery of rainwater and the reuse of purified wastewater.”
Legambiente asks Europe and the next European legislature to approve a framework law on climate resilience to coordinate stringent rules on adaptation, with effective national plans and adequate economic resources, in all member countries.
The national president of Legambiente, Stefano Ciafani, concludes: «The drought that has hit Sicily in particular in recent months, the rationed water, the protests of citizens and farmers show us in a nutshell how much the climate crisis is accelerating the pace even in Italy. From Sicily to Sardinia passing through the other regions of the Peninsula, it is clear that the effects of climate change, starting from increasingly chronic drought events, are now very tangible with serious environmental and economic repercussions. In particular, the prolonged drought in recent years has repeatedly brought agricultural production to its knees and caused a worrying drop in lake levels. This is why it is essential to intervene in prevention rather than acting after extreme climatic events have hit the Peninsula. Our country must aim for a circular, sustainable and integrated approach to water management and a widespread diffusion of good practices already active in the area. At a European level we ask for more ambitious climate and energy policies that are based on the green deal and on a new pact for the future that truly puts the environment at the centre.”
