The alarm:“Summer extended into October?It's a disaster waiting to happen."

October is presenting itself everywhere in Italy as a month of sea swimming

ROME - “We are helplessly facing the risk of an announced disaster:the exaggeratedly prolonged summer is the potential story of a climatic 'Titanic' with unpredictable consequences“.Reading the data listed in the weekly report of the Anbi Observatory on Water Resources, which photographs a country with a dangerously uncertain environmental future, is a strong reminder of reality.

2023 YEAR OF RECORDS FOR HEAT

2023 is proving to be yet another record year since New Year's Eve, which was the hottest ever in several European countries, where temperatures were recorded up to 20 degrees higher than usual.Overall, in Europe, this year was the third warmest January in history, followed by a February with temperatures on average 1.22° above normal.Globally, 2023 was the second warmest March in history, April the fourth and May the second. With the summer all records were broken with July being the hottest month ever ahead of August with record sea temperatures.Globally, from January to September, the temperature was 1.40° above the average of the pre-industrial era (sources:National Oceanic and Atomospheric Association and Copernicus Climate Change Service).

October is appearing everywhere in Italy as a month still characterized by sea bathing in waters between 23 and 25 degrees, while to find the freezing point you have to climb up to 4,100 meters, surpassing the previous record of 2022.In the city temperatures are not far from 30 degrees and, in southern Piedmont, they reached 35.3° in Acqui Terme, while for over two weeks, the average temperature in Turin (22.5°) has been over 5 degrees higher than the usual one of the period.

THE EUROPEAN OCTOBER RATES

In Europe the climatic condition in October is similar:in France, in the Pyrenees, the record was reached at 35.8°;in southern Spain it still reaches 38°;in London the maximum temperatures are well above average.It is even superfluous to state that in this context even rain is lacking and that many lands are dried up and not very fertile, difficult to work and inadequate to accommodate autumn sowing (for example, wheat).The ones who pay the consequences are the plants themselves, who suffer the stress of an anomalous climate, which puts their natural cycle to the test, pushing them to trigger natural defense strategies, which often slow down their maturation as well as subjecting them to a greater risk of suffering the attack of insects, parasites or other alien organisms, which adapt better to these conditions.
Francesco Vincenzi, President of the National Association of Consortia for the Management and Protection of the Territory and Irrigation Waters (Anbi) reiterates:“The question to ask is always the same:what will happen when the cold air currents from the North collide with the persistent African heat in the Mediterranean area?The danger is a tropicalization of the climate with an accentuation of extreme events, for which the Italian territory and its communities are unprepared.We urgently need information campaigns for the population to reduce the risks of careless behavior in the event of violent natural events and, as soon as possible, a national plan to improve the efficiency of the hydraulic network and the infrastructure of the territory".

THE SITUATION OF LAKES AND RIVERS

In this climatically interlocutory and anomalous phase, the water condition of Italy sees the large northern lakes contain a quantity of water greater than the average for the period:the Major is at 94.7% full;the Lario at 50%;Benaco at 63.6%;Sebino at 52.1%.In Valle d'Aosta there is a slight decrease in the flow of the Dora Baltea and the Lys torrent.A similar situation is recorded in Piedmont where the rivers, with the exception of the Varaita, return to the low levels of recent years:the Tanaro is at around 21% of the average October flow rate, the Bormida has a flow rate of 1 cubic meter per second, the Scrivia is at 1.8 m3/s (source:ARPA Piedmont).The flow of the Adda river also drops (from 212 m3/s to 166 m3/s) in Lombardy, where water reserves, however, continue to be higher than average (+22%), even marking +160% compared to a year ago ( source:ARPA Lombardy).In Veneto, only the flow of the Piave river is stable, while those of the Adige, Livenza, Brenta and Bacchiglione are decreasing.In Emilia Romagna, October has so far been stingy with rainfall and this is a cause for great concern especially for the western territories where, with a hydroclimatic balance in strong deficit, the levels of the Taro and Trebbia rivers are falling, lacking as much as 84% ​​of the normal flow rate (!);To complicate the situation there are anomalous temperatures, which in Piacenza reached 33 degrees. In this context, the Po river, having exhausted the effect of the heavy rains at the end of September, begins to decrease rapidly again: the water flow in some stations, such as Pontelagoscuro, stands at half the average for the period.In Liguria the levels of the Entella and Vara rivers are falling, the Magra is rising and Argentina is stable.In Tuscany, all the monitored watercourses are well below average:the Serchio stands out, whose flow rate is deficient by over 80% on the average of the last fifteen years, even falling below the limit of the Minimum Vital Outflow!(source:Tuscany Region Hydrological and Geological Service).

The levels of watercourses in the Marche are stable, while the reserves stored by the dams, although suffering the consequences of anomalous temperatures, are still significantly higher than in previous years.In Umbria, a rather dry September (on average about forty millimeters of rain in the region) and the so far absence of October rainfall do not allow Lake Trasimeno to recover, the level of which is lowering week after week and is 27 centimeters below the critical threshold , fixed at -cm.120;among the rivers the Nera grows, while the Chiascio is stable (source:Functional Center for Civil Protection of the Umbria Region).In Lazio, the Tiber river marks a further and noticeable setback in the Roman stretch (almost -mc/s 10 compared to last week), further widening the gap with the historical flow;a more limited decrease for Aniene (also deficient compared to the average), as well as for Liri and Sacco in Ciociaria, while the condition of Fiora is good (source:Lazio Regional Civil Protection Agency).It is a profound crisis, however, for the lakes of Bracciano and Nemi:the first, losing a further 4 centimeters, is approaching the critical level of 2022 (source:Bracciano Smart Lake), while the level of the second is now lower by 17 centimeters compared to the same period last year.The drought of this meteorological autumn, characterized by high temperatures and little rainfall, is also making itself felt in Abruzzo:in September, in Capestrano the temperature exceeded 36 degrees, while the rains were scarce throughout the region with deficits, ranging from -31.36% in the province of L'Aquila to -55.75% in the Pescara area with a peak of -74.8% in San Salvo, in the Teatro area (source:Abruzzo Region).In Campania there was a slight growth for the Volturno, Sele and Garigliano rivers.The heat and the water needs of the territories affect the availability of water in the reservoirs of Basilicata (decreased by over 11 million cubic meters in a week) and Puglia (almost 6 million cubic meters less in the Capitanata basins).A similar but more critical situation is recorded in Calabria where, in the Crotone area, where the Sant'Anna dam recorded a reduction of over 3 million cubic meters in stored volumes.Finally, in Sardinia, in September the reservoirs supplied 134 million cubic meters of water to the territory;overall, around 1 billion still remains available, i.e. a lower amount than the average of the past 13 years (source:Sardinia regional basin authority).