Less and less water in Emilia Romagna. The drought alarm launched yesterday by the Facebook page of the second degree reclamation consortium for the Emiliano Romagnolo channel.
The consortium’s emergency measures are already active with a record distribution of the water resource equal to 150 million cubic meters of water from the Po to the benefit of crops and the environment. “We have all the water pumping systems turned on for over 55,000 liters per second” specify from the consortium.
The numbers underline the seriousness of the situation: since the beginning of the year, the total rainfall has amounted to about 170 mm, which is exactly half of the long-term average of the period. v
And that’s not all: “ in Emilia Romagna it rains less than in Israel : the regional rainfall is at least 40% lower than that of Haifa in Israel” is the message launched by the CER.
In particular, 2021 stands as “the driest ever, after 2020 in which it rained 152mm.” Experts worry about the level of the Po river, which has dropped by about 25% -30% according to the most recent data. by the district authority of the River Po.
In Emilia Romagna at the moment only the water of the Cer flows, considering that the sum of the flows of the regional Apennine rivers does not reach half that of the Cer which today is 55 cubic meters per second raised by the Po. As the consortium points out: ” Over 150 million cubic meters of water have already been distributed to serve the associated reclamation consortia for agriculture, as well as for the water treatment plants of Romagna Acque and Hera-Imola, for the waste-to-energy plant of Bologna (Hera), of the ‘industry (petrochemical of Ravenna and agro-industries including the Amadori Group) and over 4,000 hectares of wetlands, some of international importance (Ramsar) ”.
The president of the CER Nicola Dalmonte also spoke on the subject, saying: ” Climate change highlights the importance of water for agriculture and other uses, and therefore that the CER is strategic and indispensable for economy of Emilia-Romagna. For us this scenario represents a huge responsibility because even a single day of suspension of our operation would lead to serious damage to crops, the environment and more. We are accelerating the in-depth study processes to identify all viable solutionsthanks to the contribution of our staff, all the useful solutions to make the operation of the plants safe and increasingly efficient – started in 2021 as early as February 25 – furthermore our scientific research is developing further solutions to obtain maximum production with minimum ‘water”.
