«Retaining and streamlining the distribution of water resources is the only solution to manage adverse weather events such as those that have occurred in recent days in half the region»: Cia Padova shares the strategy of Anbi Veneto (Regional Association of Consortia for the management and protection of territory and irrigation waters) for “a general adaptation to climate change by the regional primary sector” through a reservoir plan that increases the capacity to collect and basin the resource for use in drought periods.
Rain water
Today Veneto is able to retain only 5% of rainwater. Which is why, explains the president of Anbi Veneto, Francesco Cazzaro, «the reclamation consortia have prepared, in coordination with the Region, a reservoir plan which awaits adequate community funding to be started». Then there is the infrastructure issue: the Consortium system has been working for a long time to modernize the network and, where possible, convert it from flow to pressure. Out of 600 thousand hectares of irrigated regional surface, one third (200 thousand hectares) are infrastructured; of these, 40 thousand hectares are under pressure. «Through efficiency improvements – continues President Cazzaro – the Consortia are able to guarantee, even in increasingly longer dry periods, the availability of the resource to the entire sector, preserving production and, in some cases, creating the conditions for the transition to more valuable crops”. Andrea Crestani, director of Anbi Veneto, explains: «Water is an income multiplier for companies. One hectare of land cultivated with non-irrigated arable land, such as wheat, generates 1,200 euros per year; the same hectare dedicated to an irrigated crop, for example corn, generates 2,400 euros”. The value grows up to 15,000 euros per hectare in the case of valuable crops, such as horticulture and orchards. The system of reclamation consortia, he adds, “is engaged in a real race to bring the contributions to the construction site and inaugurate the works within the established times”.
Hello Padua
The president of Cia Padova, Luca Trivellato, specifies that the latest floods have caused at least 10 million euros of damage to the agricultural world of Padua, in particular to the arable sector. «Where floods have occurred – he underlines – 30% of the crops have been lost. Farmers have been forced to reseed, with an increase in costs and a delay in terms of vegetative development which will certainly weigh on the quality and quantity of yields.” The director of Cia Padova, Maurizio Antonini, adds: «The plan developed by Anbi in collaboration with the Region goes in the desired direction. It is necessary to retain water when there is too much of it, precisely through reservoirs, and release it when necessary”. As for next summer, he analyses, “there shouldn’t be any major problems regarding the availability of water resources”. However, Antonini concludes, “the planning carried out by the competent authorities must be implemented as soon as possible: the risk of a prolonged period of drought is always around the corner. And we cannot be unprepared for an emergency that has now become chronic.”
