Drought alarm, government's race against time:emergency meeting on March 1st

Palazzo Chigi's plan is to intervene immediately on situations of major leakage, considering the already limited availability of water after a little rainy winter

On the government's table, the first hypotheses against the risk of the water emergency focus on short-term interventions, to then evaluate possible medium-term programming.A first inter-ministerial summit has been set for next year March 1st, which will be chaired by the prime minister Giorgia Meloni.After repeated alarms issued first and foremost by trade associations in the agricultural world, the objective according to Palazzo Chigi is to «reduce the time needed for works that reduce water dispersion and allow the cleaning of basins».Also because, the government explains in a note, given the less rainy winter, the water reserves actually available are few and the time is no longer generous before the current situation turns into an emergency.The summit will be attended by representatives of the ministries of Environment, Infrastructure, Agriculture, European Affairs, Cohesion, Pnrr and the Department of Civil Protection."Courageous and immediate" decisions would be needed, explained the Minister for Civil Protection, Nello Musumeci, after "years of inertia in the water sector".Especially given the fact that drought, the minister admits, "is no longer a rare phenomenon".For several days now the increasingly scarce availability of water has been raising the hypothesis, especially in the North, that the few water resources could also put hydroelectric power plants in difficulty, without an inevitable rationing.And the fact that the phenomenon is no longer the exception of recent months is also confirmed by the Cnr, according to which between 6 and 15% of Italians now live in territories exposed to severe or extreme drought.The bulletin of the national association of reclamation consortia, theAnbi, reiterates the alarm:snow melting in the Alps, northern lakes at their lowest, Po suffering, but also rivers in the center drying up.On the other hand, in the South the reservoirs are full, and they need to be emptied into the sea.For the basin consortia, it is necessary to immediately plug the holes in the aqueducts (they lose 40% of the water), and build new lakes to accumulate rainwater (we only collect 11%).