Flood in Emilia-Romagna:the causes and interventions made so far, and what to do to mitigate the risk and address climate change

Lack of interventions to adapt the territory to extreme meteorological events, insufficient safety works with respect to hydrogeological instability, even increased land consumption.Following the severe flood in Emilia-Romagna, a heated debate arose on the interventions that could have avoided the flooding of tens of thousands of homes and the death of 15 people.Above all, we talked about lack of prevention, that is, what has not been done in recent years to make the population safe.And also of bad governance of the territory, or what has been done badly.Meanwhile, on Tuesday 23 May the Council of Ministers approved a law decree which allocates around two billion euros to deal with the emergency:the measure contains a series of indications for the population of the affected areas, including the suspension of the payment of taxes, contributions and energy utilities from 1 May to 31 August, the redundancy fund in derogation for all employees for up to 90 days, and an allowance lump sum from 3 thousand euros for self-employed workers.

Floods in Emilia-Romagna:an announced disaster and because climate change is also involved

But how did we get here?Let's take a step back.Second the Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (Ispra), a public research body linked to the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security, Emilia-Romagna is among the Italian regions with the highest percentage of potentially floodable territory in Italy.How come?Historically, Emilia-Romagna is a land of reclamation:in addition to the many rivers and streams that have been canalised, there are thousands of kilometers of drainage and irrigation canals.Near which it was also built.This is why the floodable areas are particularly large.The last one relationship Ispra adds an aggravating circumstance to the hydrogeological instability:the network of waterways develops on morphologically depressed areas, i.e. located at a lower level than the ground.Furthermore, the channels are often suspended, that is, the bed is raised above the ground level.

“The embankments that collapsed during this flood are the result of the great land reclamations of the early twentieth century, which had the objective of recovering as much space as possible for agriculture,” he explains to Blue suitcase Andrea Colombo, responsible for the evaluation and management of hydraulic risks of the Po River District Basin Authority, the body responsible for writing the Flood Risk Management Plan (Pgra) and the Plan for the hydrogeological structure (Pai).“The embankments that were built in the last century are now too narrow, so much so that in the event of major floods, such as those that recently occurred, the water does not have enough space to flow and ends up overflowing:being built mainly of earth, they erode and collapse quickly.This is why it would be necessary to move back the embankments where possible:we must give more space to the rivers."Leaving rivers more freedom to flow, however, does not mean leaving them free to overflow, but rather solving the root problem of excessive water canalization which no longer stands.“In recent days there has been a lot of discussion about the 'securing' of the territory, but it is not taken into account that, when we talk about natural phenomena, absolute safety is not possible,” says Colombo.“Better then to talk about risk mitigation:we must do everything to lower the level of risk, but being aware that zero risk does not exist."

There are those who ask to stop building artificial works and those who think that the solution is dams, those who focus on the renaturalization of the river and those who instead propose to strengthen the banks.“There are no simple and immediate solutions:a mix of interventions must be studied, which is sustainable both from a technical, economic and social point of view", comments Andrea Colombo.“Proper maintenance of the banks and riverbed is a necessary but not sufficient intervention.We must therefore first of all complete the interventions already started, such as the expansion tanks which are under construction and which must be completed.Then, where possible, it will be necessary to move back the current embankments, also creating a double system with closed floodplains, as already exist in some places at the mouth of the Po, and create stretches of non-erodible embankments which will not collapse if overcome by the water.The crossing structures, i.e. the bridges, should be modernized:many are inadequate because, being too low or too narrow, when the river level rises they end up obstructing the passage of water, increasing the pressure upstream.The same happens in the sewered sections, i.e. the parts of the river that have been covered, particularly in the cities:where possible, the cover should be removed or the outflow section should be expanded."

Another particularly delicate issue is that of the relocation of homes in the most at-risk areas.“We must have the courage to relocate the most critical buildings and settlements and those that have been seriously damaged by the flood event further away from the river,” says Colombo.“These are complex choices, which must be explained, but which we can no longer postpone”.

The link between flooding and land consumption

With these premises, the Emilia-Romagna territory should be little overbuilt.But no:Emilia-Romagna is the fourth most cemented region in Italy (after Lombardy, Veneto and Campania) with 8.9% of soil sealed against the national 7.1%.The last one says it relationship on the land consumption of Ispra.Furthermore, it is third among the regions that recorded a greater increase in land consumption compared to 2020:658 more hectares covered, equivalent to 10.4% of national land consumption.The province of Ravenna is the second regional province for land consumption in 2020-2021 (plus 114 hectares, equal to 17.3% of regional consumption), with a per capita consumption of 2.95 square meters per inhabitant per year.

“The reason why the rain is having harmful and sometimes lethal consequences is easy to say:it falls on asphalted, cemented, waterproofed ground, which cannot absorb a single drop of it, therefore this water not only does not regenerate life, not only does it not recharge the aquifers, but it accumulates on the surface and runs away, at great speed, overwhelming what he finds,” he wrote also the Wu Ming collective in the Giap blog.“It often overflows from waterways whose banks – and often also the beds – have been cemented, and whose rods have been “rectified”.Waterways around which, senselessly, people have built and are still building."

In Emilia-Romagna, soil is consumed even in protected areas (plus 2.1 hectares), in areas at risk of landslides (plus 11.8 hectares), in areas with high hydraulic danger (plus 78.6 hectares).“We still build in dangerous areas, exposing populations to risk,” explained Francesca Giordano, a researcher at ISPRA, in an interview with Act.“There are buildings, perhaps condoned over time, that are found to be close to river banks.Soil sealing makes the territory less able to absorb water."

The inability of the soil to absorb water, however, does not only concern cemented soil:Michele Munafò, responsible for the Ispra land consumption report, declared in an interview with Manifest that even in the fields "intensive agriculture, without adequate vegetation cover, only reduces the soil's ability to infiltrate water and retain it.If we add to this a situation that alternates prolonged drought and heavy rains, this only degrades the soil."

Initiatives for the mitigation of climate change in Emilia-Romagna

In 2017 the Emilia-Romagna region approved the law 24 on the protection and use of the territory:to achieve the objective of zero land consumption by 2050, interventions have been made on territorial and urban planning tools, promoting the reuse and regeneration of urbanized territory.

According to some experts, however, the law was not only not designed to reduce land consumption, but actually facilitated it.In the collective volume Consumption of place.Neoliberal regression in the Emilia-Romagna urban planning law, it reads:“By proclaiming land savings and urban qualification, the law goes in the opposite direction.The three percent limit placed on the expansion of urban territories, already very high in itself, is additional, not an alternative to the further occupation of land that the urban planning plans allow.And the indiscriminate "densification", conceived and reiterated as the only way of urban regeneration, does not promise quality, but eco-monsters".This is also reiterated by Paolo Pileri, professor of urban planning and design at the Polytechnic of Milan, who in an analysis on Other economics he writes that regional law 24/2017 “is leaking on all sides with regards to soil protection.And the knots come home to roost."

In 2018 the region issued the "Strategy for mitigation and adaptation to climate change”.The document contains, in addition to an in-depth assessment of the regional emissions framework and future and ongoing climate change scenarios, a sectoral analysis of the main vulnerabilities and the actions to be taken for each physical-environmental and economic sector.Among these was the strengthening of interventions for the adaptation of the territory, the doubling of ordinary and extraordinary maintenance activities, the maintenance and strengthening of the warning system, the fight against coastal erosion, the strengthening of the "Emilia Weather Alert" portal -Romagna”.But above all, "all municipal administrations were invited to renew their urban planning tools, eliminating expansion forecasts and focusing the new strategy on urban regeneration that significantly increases the resilience of cities and the territory".

What results have been obtained in recent years?According to data provided by the Rendis platform of Ispra, in Emilia-Romagna have been put in the pipeline 529 interventions for the mitigation of hydrogeological instability from 1999 to 2022 (4.7% of the total works at national level) of which 368 have been completed (69.5%).The total amount of money allocated to prevention was 561 million:of these only 45% (258 million) was used for projects that are completed.

Among the works most cited as decisive in the event of floods are the so-called "expansion tanks", reservoirs built to collect the water that comes out of rivers during floods: according to several experts, however, not enough have been built throughout the region and especially in Romagna.And even where there were, with such intense rainfall they were essentially ineffective.According to a reports of the Emilia-Romagna region which cites data from the national association of reclamation and irrigation (Anbi), in Emilia-Romagna there are 53 expansion tanks which can collect up to 66 million cubic meters of water.The first were designed in the Seventies, following the 1973 flood in Reggio Emilia.Until the end of the nineties they were built mainly in the Emilian plain, an area most at risk of floods, then some were also built in Romagna.

Since the beginning of Stefano Bonaccini's legislature, 190 million euros have been allocated to build 23 new hydraulic works including expansion tanks and artificial basins.After the first flood at the beginning of May, the Fratelli d'Italia senator Marco Lisei he said that at the moment only 12 of the 23 new ones planned are working.The others are in the planning or construction phase.One of the problems is related to costs, which are high for this type of work, also due to expropriations.“The hydraulic works are financed either by the Civil Protection or by the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security”, he explained the vice-president of the Region, Irene Priolo.“This year we will have 13 million euros from the Ministry of the Environment compared to the 22 received last year.Insignificant funding, in the face of great complexity also regarding the long authorization process."

The national strategy, from ItaliaSicura to ProteggItalia

But prevention, as well as in the territories, must be done in the rooms of government.In 2014 the executive led by Matteo Renzi created ItaliaSicura, a "mission structure", i.e. a technical body created with a specific objective:prevent damage from hydrogeological instability with a series of interventions to be carried out over about ten years.It was made up of 16 technicians from ministries, the Civil Protection department, Invitalia (the government agency that deals with the country's economic growth) and two external experts:Erasmo D'Angelis and Mauro Grassi.

Speaking to Omnibus, on La7, D'Angelis said that ItaliaSicura "has created the first plan of works and interventions region by region":10,361 works, which could still be implemented today, for an estimated cost of around 30 billion euros.The idea was to allocate around 3 or 4 billion euros every year, explained D'Angelis, and do it with a structure that could also work with different governments to give continuity to the interventions.Second The Sun 24 Hours, in the four years in which ItaliaSicura was active, 8.2 billion euros were allocated, put together using unspent funds from various ministries:However, those funds were not completely used.

Second an analysis by the Court of Auditors, between 2016 and 2019 – i.e. in the years in which ItaliaSicura was operational – 1,445 construction sites were opened (or reopened), but only a part was completed:“A real national policy to combat hydrogeological instability, of a preventive and non-emergency nature, also consistent with an urban planning and landscape policy, respectful of environmental constraints, with short, medium and long-term interventions, does not yet appear to be fully defined” , writes the Court, which also criticized the fact that the decision-making processes were changed from one government to another to carry out the interventions.

In 2019, the first Conte government closed ItaliaSicura, believing that a mission structure represented an unnecessary cost.The management of the risks of hydrogeological instability has been brought under the Ministry of the Environment, and ItaliaSicura has been replaced by the plan Protect Italy, for which an allocation of 14.3 billion has been foreseen until 2030.

Again according to the Court of Auditors, however, not even ProteggItalia is an effective solution:“The slowness in the adoption of both decision-making and implementation processes remains, often conditioned by long national and local concertation processes”, we read in a relationship of 2021 on the mitigation of hydrogeological risk.The main problem therefore remains the fragmentation of decision-making processes, which still involve many national and local authorities.

According to the ReNDiS report Soil protection in twenty years of ISPRA monitoring of interventions for the mitigation of hydrogeological risk, the overall allocation for prevention in the period from 1999 to 2019 amounts to 6.6 billion euros, for a total of over 6 thousand projects financed, against more than 26 billion euros of requests:a figure that does not satisfy the needs of the territories.The largest resources were allocated to Sicily (789 million euros), followed by Lombardy (598 million), Tuscany (591 million), Campania (486 million) and Emilia-Romagna (454 million).As regards the types of intervention, a clear prevalence of works financed for landslide areas emerges, which represent 52% of the total.

After the landslide in Ischia, the Minister for Civil Protection Nello Musumeci he declared that an inter-ministerial working group was set up, entrusted to him, to reconstruct the framework of the ongoing anti-disruption interventions.“From 2019 to 2027, 21 billion have been made available for land protection,” he said.But what results the inter-ministerial working group brought is unclear.Moreover:even today in Italy there is a lack of a real one National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change (Pnacc), which has been pending since June 2018, having unsuccessfully gone through four governments.Last December the Meloni government managed to present officially one new version of the PNACC to the Conference of the Regions, which will now carry out the strategic environmental assessment.Despite the promises, the PNACC process has returned to exactly the same point where it was blocked the first time.

The Pnrr:few resources for hydrogeological risk management

Now there is the Pnrr game, which provides for the allocation of 15 billion euros for the "protection of the territory and water resources", of which 2.49 billion euros go specifically to interventions "for the management of flood risk and for the reduction of hydrogeological risk" (investment 2.1).The goal is to secure the safety of 1.5 million people who currently live in areas at hydrogeological risk, and to do so by March 2026.But the resources may not be enough:“The scarcity of resources assigned by the Pnrr in relation to the overall estimate of the need for interventions for the mitigation of hydrogeological risk throughout the national territory implies the fundamental importance of the correct selection of the projects to be financed”, we read in a new analysis of the Court of Auditors of July 2022.

Of these 2.49 billion euros, 1.287 billion are the responsibility of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, intended for reimbursement of expenses for interventions already financed (and therefore not usable for new interventions).The remaining 1.2 billion euros are assigned to the Department of Civil Protection:of these, 800 million were distributed among the regions.Emilia-Romagna has received approximately 61 million, with which it will carry out 76 interventions which must be designed, tendered and contracted by April 2024 and concluded by 31 December 2025, and then reported by 30 June 2026.“These 61 million are the only resources to be allocated to new interventions, not exclusively to soil defense interventions but also for the restoration of infrastructure damaged following calamitous events and for the reduction of residual risk on the basis of plans approved by the Department of the Civil Protection", he made it known the region.

 Alongside investments, the Pnrr envisages a reform to simplify and accelerate interventions to combat hydrogeological risk, as well as to strengthen the technical support structures of the extraordinary commissioners, and the operational capabilities of the district basin authorities and the provinces.“For the purposes of achieving the final objective, the ability to promptly proceed with the awarding and implementation of the works covered by the planned interventions will be decisive”, concludes the Court of Auditors.

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