In Italy there is now an increasing 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). This photograph was taken by Legambiente, which in view of World Environment Day with the theme “restoration of the territory, desertification and resilience to drought”, takes stock of the situation with the new data from its CittàClima Observatory while launching a double appeal to the Meloni Government and to Europe in view of the next European legislature. Lombardy is therefore the region most affected by drought, but the effects of the climate crisis can go even further if an adaptation strategy is not adopted.
«After two springs of extreme drought, in the first 5 months of 2024 more than double the average precipitation fell in Lombardy» explains Damiano Di Simine, scientific director of Legambiente Lombardia. «If in 2022 and 2023 the drought caused irrigation supplies for corn to disappear, this year farmers had problems sowing corn on land perpetually covered in mud. We need to deal with climate change, reducing the fragility that characterizes an agriculture that until now has made extreme specialization its strong point. Increasing the resilience and differentiation of crops is the way to limit the damage linked to extreme climatic phenomena, but also to increase the sustainability of an agriculture which, especially in Lombardy, is at the same time the first victim but also one of the main causes of climate change”.
