Drought prompts Pope to turn off fountains
ECOLOGY-MINDED PONTIFF MAKES HISTORIC MOVE IN A SHOW OF SOLIDARITY WITH ITALIANS
WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?
Italy is suffering a severe drought that has caused water shortages and crop damage. In the industrial heartland of the northern Po River valley, dried out tributaries appear from the air as dozens of sandy squiggles across the fertile plain. On the ground, dried-out corn fields rustle in the hot wind alongside parched river beds. The temporary disappearance of critical tributaries and reservoirs used for irrigation and drinking water are putting crops and industrial output in the usually verdant valley at risk.
WHAT WILL BE THE FALLOUT?
Italy is the world’s top exporter of processed tomato pastes, sauces and products, and industry officials in Emilia-Romagna worry water shortages could disrupt operations. “Some areas are 90 per cent below the norm, so some of the tomato processing factories are quite worried,” said Lorenzo Mantelli, a technician for the interbranch organization of tomato processing in northern Italy.
HOW WILL THEY COPE?
When there is no water from rivers or canals, producers must pump groundwater. But the water table is dropping and salt water from the Adriatic Sea has encroached 20 kilometres inland as a result, scientists say. “We have a historic drought in the Po Valley, but also the situation nationally is quite grave,” said Vittorio Marletto, an agricultural meteorologist from the Regional Environmental and Energy Agency of EmiliaRomagna. “For years we have seen progressively diminishing precipitation and rising temperatures due to the changing climate. The lack of snowpack in the Apennine mountains to recharge the aquifers is particularly dramatic.”
WHAT CAN PEOPLE DO?
Some private citizens are making backup plans in case public water supplies dry up, as their rivers have. “Many people are asking for emergency cisterns to gather what spring water there is,” said Enzo Credali, a construction worker who stopped for refreshment at a roadside food truck near the Mignano Dam after installing one such cistern at a nearby monastery. A dozen Italian regions are asking for natural disaster status due to drought, with Italy’s agricultural sector estimated to have lost almost $3 billion already.
HAS IT BEEN DONE BEFORE?
It is the first time in history that Vatican City authorities recall being forced to turn off fountains in its gardens and squares, said Greg Burke, Vatican spokesman, standing in St Peter’s Square near two dry 17th-century fountains. “This decision is very much in line with the Pope’s thinking on ecology: you can’t waste and sometimes you have to be willing to make a sacrifice,” Burke said. For 2,000 years, an abundant supply of water has burbled through Rome’s ancient aqueducts, baths and fountains, but the city’s 1.5 million inhabitants may be sacrificing water for eight hours a day in alternating neighbourhoods if a proposed waterrationing plan goes into effect this Friday.