Turn on notifications to receive updates on
First the flood, then the mud and, in the end, the reconstruction. A year ago Romagna and part of Emilia faced one of the worst floods in recent history. An exceptional disturbance remained for days over cities such as Cesena, Forlì, Faenza and Ravenna. In the plains the rivers burst their banks, overwhelming cars, houses and people. On the Apennines the enemy turned out to be landslides, which blocked the roads by the thousands and made the apartments uninhabitable.
There are towns like Monzuno, on the first mountains of Bologna, which remain isolated for days. Downstream, small communities such as Lugo or Sant’Agata sul Santerno, covered in mud, become the symbol of the event. The alarm system works, this time there is little controversy over the authorities’ delay, but it does not avoid the tragedy. The final toll is seventeen deaths and ten billion in damages.
One year later, it’s time to take stock. Together with compensation for flood victims, about whose delay much has been written, there is the theme of reconstruction. What has been done to prevent something similar from happening again? “Nothing, nothing has been done”, is the response of Gabriele Bollini, professor of sustainable design and planning at the University of Modena and rapporteur of a proposed urban planning law for Emilia Romagna promoted by Legambiente and Rete Emergenza Climatica e Environmental.
Read more by this author
Prevent tragedies like those of the flood in Romagna it is a job that consists of two phases. The first is the adaptation of the territory, which includes the fight against hydrogeological instability that politics talks about a lot. It is the set of interventions that make communities safe, suitable for dealing with extreme meteorological events. The other side is mitigation.
There is unanimous consensus among the scientific community on the fact that global warming makes certain meteorological phenomena – heavy rains, but also droughts – more frequent. Reducing climate-altering emissions means avoiding an indiscriminate increase in these events in the future. “Let’s start with the security of the territory. On 22 April the regional council took note of the provisional plan of the Special Commissioner on prevention. It was a document to be prepared months ago, after the summer, but it has only arrived now. The document should be published in June. definitive version”.
What does this plan say? “This is what we have always supported with the urban planning proposals presented over the years. We must not rebuild, but redesign. We must slow down the flow of the waters and, therefore, give space back to the rivers. Thinking of being safe simply by raising the embankments or carrying out maintenance is a ‘illusion. Take the flood in the Tuscan plain in November. The banks there were in place. But everything flooded anyway which was theirs. A river like the Piave, for example, reaches up to three kilometers of bed. It doesn’t mean that there is always all that water, but that in exceptional moments the rains find space to vent on that built bed. here comes the problems.” The path of returning land to the rivers is often indicated by experts. But do the authorities listen? “In Faenza, after the flood, they were about to build on flooded land. Luckily they were stopped.”
If it is necessary to redesign in the territories, at a national level the problem of the climate crisis arises. There is still debate about whether the increase in average global temperatures played a role in the floods of a year ago. In the days immediately following the disaster, World Weather Attribution, an international research center specialized in the analysis of extreme meteorological events, published a pre-print, i.e. a study not yet subjected to review by other scientists. That research estimated that a similar flood in that area occurs once every 200 years, and found no evidence of a link to the climate crisis. Four Italian climate scientists responded with an article on a specialized blog, partially contesting the conclusions of the study and calling for further investigations. What certainly remains is that the IPCC, the highest global body in the climate field, predicts an increase in extreme weather phenomena for the Mediterranean area precisely because of the climate change.
“In recent weeks the Italian government has been rewriting the national plan on energy and climate”, explains Chiara di Mambro, head of decarbonisation at the Ecco think-tank. “But the choices are contradictory: ground-based photovoltaics are blocked, incentives are given to cars that are not exactly aligned with ecological objectives. Governance is lacking.”
Reducing emissions is a global problem, but the decisions of a G7 country like Italy – among the most industrialized in the world – are particularly important. “The government continues to make virtuous commitments at an international level. But as evidenced by the facts, they do not translate adequately into policies. The climate must become a priority on a par with, say, the National Health Service.”
What will happen if we neglect the problem – we ask? “The flood in Emilia Romagna is the perfect example. We already see the effects of the climate crisis today, and if we don’t stop it they will get worse: storms certainly, but also drought and fires”.
