The heat that affected the Italian peninsula in summer, is manifesting itself again. Temperatures reached 26 degrees on Saturday, October 29, when they deserved to be rather ten degrees less.
While on the positive side, mayors of some northern Italian cities are postponing turning on radiators, which will require electricity and gas, droughts in rural spaces are resurfacing.
According to Coldiretti, the largest of Italian agriculture, lately in the Po, the water is -2. 3 meters above hydrometric zero, with drought returning to last summer’s levels, the lowest in the last 70 years.
According to the Italian Institute of Atmospheric and Climate Sciences (Cnr), 2022 is the year recorded in Italy since 1800, with a temperature almost one degree higher.
Looking at figures from the Emilia-Romagna Environmental and Energy Prevention Agency (Arpae), August was the fourth wettest in the 1991-2020 series, water accumulations since January were still particularly below the annual climate average (-25. 7%). In addition, the company said monthly flows into the Po River in August 2022 were below long-term old averages.
At the economic level, the damage caused to the agricultural sector was significant in the current quarter of 2022, constituting 10% of gross domestic product. The $6 billion loss basically affected northern Italy. This summer’s drought has affected both maize and its production is more widespread in the regions of Lombardy, Piedmont, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna.
The factor of water scarcity is becoming more common and likely to pose structural disruptions in the near future, as farmers begin to think about how to diversify their crops, opting for those that may require less water.