The anomalous heat that affected the Italian peninsula in the summer, is showing up again. Temperature reached 26 degrees on Saturday 29th Octobers, when the weather should instead be around ten degrees less.

While on the bright side, cities’ mayors throughout the North of Italy are postponing the switch on radiators – which will diminish consistently electricity and gas demands for households – , drought in the rural areas are reappearing, limiting especially the hydrogeological resources of the Po Valley.

According to Coldiretti, the italian the largest association for the assistance of Italian agriculture, the situation of the Po river athe water is -2.3 meters above the hydrometric zero, with the drought returning to the levels of last summer, the lowest in the last 70 years.

According to the Italian Institute of Atmosphere and Climate Sciences (Cnr), 2022 ranks as the hottest ever year recorded in Italy since 1800 with a temperature even higher by almost one degree. Looking at figures from the Emilia Romagna Environment and Energy Prevention Agency (Arpae), although August wasthe fourth wettest of the 1991-2020 series, the water accumulations since January were still significantly below the climatic yearly average (-25.7%). Furthermore, the agency reported that the monthly flows of the Po river in August 2022 were lower than the long-term historical averages and comparable with the historical lows.

At the economic level, the damage to the agricultural sector has been prominent in the second trimester, constituting 10% of GDP. The circa $ 6 billion losses mainly affected the North of Italy. The crop most hit was corn, almost halved in harvest, as the drought from this summer hit harder the regions of Lombardy, Piedmont, Veneto and Emilia Romagna, which represent almost 9% of the whole national production.

The issue of scarcity of water supply is becoming more and more frequent and might present structural issues again soon, whereas farmers are starting to think how to diversify their crops, choosing those that might require less water.