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Italy's Po River valley on drought alert / Photo: © AFP
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Italy's Po River valley on drought alert
Italian authorities raised the drought alert level to "high" on Thursday in the Po Valley, home of the country's longest river, due to worsening conditions and unfavourable weather forecasts.
More than 100 municipalities in Italy's northern regions of Piedmont and Lombardy are already facing water supply difficulties, the Po River Authority (ADBPO) said in a statement.
Some are using tanker trucks to fill drinking water reservoirs, it added.
At the foot of the Alps, Lake Maggiore and Lake Como saw their water levels drop in a week by 7 percent and 6 percent respectively, according to the ADBPO, after they helped irrigate fields throughout the dried-up valley with water stored during the winter.
As in much of Europe, summer arrived too early in Italy's northern regions -- including in northwestern Veneto, which is also facing shortages.
After a dry spring, the months of June and July saw record heat that melted the snow reserves.
Twenty river basins in Italy's north, where a new heatwave is expected to hit Friday, have already been granted permission to bypass minimum water flows in rivers to avoid a destructive drought like that of 2022.
Despite a short spell of recent rainfall, the north has less water in lakes and rivers than it did ten days ago when the authority last met, said ABDPO Secretary General Alessandro Delpiano.
"Let's not fool ourselves into thinking that summer storms can solve deep-rooted problems," he added.
The heatwave that has hit Europe in June would have been almost impossible without climate change, according to climatologists from the World Weather Attribution group (WWA).
G. Souza--JDB
