Snow halved in the Alps, lakes and rivers in great pain, almost dry like last summer, waterways that have reached a state of "medium" water severity in three of the seven district authorities.
of the Po River, the Northern Apennines and the Central Apennines.
This is the picture outlined by Legambiente which considers "the lack of snow worrying, with 53% less in the Alps, and in particular the Po basin, with a deficit of 61%", according to data from the Cima Research Foundation.
The environmental association therefore launches an appeal to the Meloni government, indicating the priorities for a national water strategy.
Legambiente is thinking of a strategy structured in eight points, with short, medium and long-term interventions that favor on the one hand adaptation to climate change, and on the other allow the immediate reduction of water withdrawals, also avoiding waste.
In fact, starting from the next few months, explains the association, "the demand for water for agricultural use will be added to the current civil and industrial uses which are already suffering and the national water requirement will be unsustainable compared to the actual availability".
Eight pillars, for Legambiente
: favor the controlled recharge of the aquifer by making sure that the increasingly less and more concentrated precipitations remain longer in the area instead of flowing quickly downstream to the sea;
provide for the obligation to recover rainwater with the installation of water saving systems and the recovery of permeability and through de-sealing measures in urban environments;
in agriculture by providing for ponds and small basins;
structural interventions to make the functioning of the integrated water cycle efficient and allow the reduction of network losses and complete the interventions on purification;
implement the reuse of purified wastewater in agriculture through the necessary regulatory changes;
reconvert the agricultural sector towards less water-demanding crops and more efficient irrigation methods;
use minimum environmental criteria in the construction field to reduce waste;
encourage the reuse of water in industrial cycles also to reduce polluting discharges;
introduce incentive and tax relief measures on the subject of water, as is the case for energy efficiency measures, for all uses and for all sectors involved.
"2023 has just begun, but it is showing worrying signs in terms of extreme climatic events, drought levels. We need to immediately reduce withdrawals in the various sectors and for the various uses before reaching the point of no return. We then need to adopt a national water strategy that has a circular approach", explains Giorgio Zampetti, general manager of Legambiente.
