According to a meteorologist, Italy is facing the next drought summer.
The effects are already dramatic in the holiday country - for example on Lake Garda.
Munich/Sirmione/Rome - Dolce Vita, Spaghetti Carbonara and cute little towns: millions of Germans spend their holidays in Italy every year.
That was the case even in the Corona summer of 2020.
Travel to Italy: In the summer, the holiday country is threatened with an “extreme drought”
Alto Adige (South Tyrol), Lake Garda, the Adriatic coast with Venice, Tuscany with Florence, Lazio with Rome or the Amalfi coast on the Gulf of Naples - the travel destinations are diverse and in many places picturesquely beautiful.
In recent years, for example, the Italian Riviera in Liguria with Portofino and the Cinque Terre has enjoyed increasing popularity.
Even the Marche region, which is relatively unknown in Germany, has come into focus, for example with the Riviera del Conero.
All of those holiday destinations are now threatened with exactly what many areas of Italy experienced in 2022: “extreme drought” and massive water shortages in summer.
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Picturesque holiday hotspot: Sirmione on Lake Garda.
© IMAGO / Panthermedia
That's what the well-known meteorologist Dominik Jung predicted - and thus joined the same forecasts.
“All in all, the winter of 2022/23 brought far too little precipitation, especially in the south of Germany.
This also applies to the Alps.
Rarely has a winter in the Alps had as little snow as this winter," explained Jung in a video analysis for the
wetter.net
portal : "In many regions of France and Italy, this drought winter could result in an extreme drought summer have.
That should be really interesting this year.
In winter, the necessary precipitation simply did not fall.
The drought is already extreme.”
Drought in Italy: From the Alps to Liguria to Sicily
In figures: In the past few months, 53 percent less snow has fallen in the Italian Alps than the long-term average, according to the environmental organization "Legambiente".
In the Po basin, the country's largest river, precipitation has even fallen by 61 percent.
The north and center of the Apennines are also affected, according to Legambiente.
The Apennines run through Italy as a chain of different mountains over 1500 kilometers from Liguria in the north to northern Sicily in the extreme south.
In many regions of France and Italy, this drought winter could result in an extreme drought summer.
Meteorologist Dominik Jung at wetter.net
However, the lack of snow and the associated lack of water in the Alps has had a significant impact on the course of the Po river, which at 652 kilometers is the longest body of water in the country.
As a water dispenser, the Po is of outstanding importance for the economically important food industry in the north.
The river rises in the Cottian Alps southwest of Turin.
At the end of February, the level was three meters below normal on average, and the water level in Piacenza and Cremona reached its all-time record low.
Drought in Italy: reservoir in Trentino lacks millions of cubic meters of water
That's not all: the Santa Giustina reservoir in the Non Valley of Trentino is currently missing an estimated 30 million cubic meters of water, which is less than half the normal level, it said.
In the entire Trentino region, all the reservoirs are well below the normal water level.
From these, too, a lot of water is usually diverted for electricity production and for irrigating the fields in the Po Valley.
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Extreme drought on Lake Garda: near Sirmione, the famous island of Isola di San Biagio is within walking distance.
© Dominik Bartl
Lake Garda, which is particularly popular with holidaymakers from southern Germany, is already (or still) affected by the drought.
The outflow into the Minicio has already had to be curbed in the little fortress town of Peschiera, which is well-known to tourists.
And to the minimum.
"It hasn't rained in over a month.
Lake Garda is therefore registering a situation that it has not experienced in living memory.
In mid-February, Lake Garda was never more than 40 centimeters above the hydrometric zero point in Peschiera," Pierlucio Ceresa, Secretary General of the Association of Lake Garda Municipalities, recently explained to Focus Online: "We are registering a water volume that has never been so low in
the
past been,"
tagesschau.de
quoted him as saying .
The representatives of the municipalities on Lake Garda therefore came together for a crisis meeting in mid-February.
Holidays on Lake Garda: alarming lack of water between Peschiera and Sirmione
The reasons are obvious: in the south at the Sirmione promontory, the water level is so low due to the persistent drought that the popular island "Isola di San Biagio" can be reached on foot.
Especially in and around Sirmione, Bavarian license plates such as M for Munich, A for Augsburg or STA for Starnberg line the large parking lots in front of the gates of the Scaliger Castle during the warm season.
Siccità, soffre il Garda: il drone in volo a Sirmione #Garda #Sirmione #siccità #localteam pic.twitter.com/wpoO7jgP8s
— Local Team (@localteamtv) August 5, 2022
Significant: Already last midsummer, whole sections of the popular "Jamaica Beach" in the north of Sirmione were without water, downright dried up.
Drone footage from the news channel Local Team TV showed on Twitter at the time that the rocks protruded much further into the lake than usual.
Sirmione's north was like a rocky landscape - in 2023 the situation will apparently be even more alarming.
(pm)
List of rubrics: © IMAGO / Panthermedia