Drought in Puglia, red alert: reservoirs are already dry. “Drinking water in danger”,
The complaint comes from Coldiretti Puglia. There are already 110 million cubic metres less water than at the same time last year. And while Puglia’s agriculture is suffering, the Liscione dam (in Molise) is releasing water into the sea – more than ever before.
Around 800 million cubic metres of water are missing in Puglia, 120 million in Capitanata alone, one of the thirstiest areas in the region. The alarm comes from Coldiretti Puglia.
“The long-awaited radical change has not taken place this winter”, they say, “with the risk of an unprecedented water crisis, given that 110 million cubic metres of water are already missing compared to the same period last year.”
Specifically, the Capitanata reservoirs hold 80 million cubic metres of water, compared with almost 190 million last year, a drop of 57 per cent. Since the beginning of December, the Tavoliere reservoirs, which are already in serious trouble, have collected a total of around 47 million cubic metres of water, whereas last year more than 100 billion litres more were not enough to irrigate the fields during the hottest summer in history.
If the scenario does not change drastically with the arrival of rains that will fill the reservoirs more decisively, there will be no water to irrigate the fields in the summer of 2025, with serious consequences for drinking water. Another discouraging fact is that Puglia is the region in Italy that receives the least rainfall, with an average of 640 millimetres per year, and drought has serious consequences for agriculture.
Farmers fear a new emergency, worse than last year’s, which caused more than a billion euros’ worth of damage to the Apulian countryside. Together with Anbi, the national association for land reclamation, Coldiretti has drawn up a project to create a system of reservoirs with a pumping system that would guarantee water reserves but also limit the impact of rain and downpours on the land.
“Even if ten to 30 million cubic metres of water were to arrive now, we would have to save it for drinking water”, stresses Giuseppe De Filippo, president of Anbi Puglia and number one of the Capitanata Land Reclamation Consortium. “At the moment we have half the water we need, with an increasingly paradoxical situation: since Friday 14 March, the Liscione dam in neighbouring Molise has been leaking water into the sea, a resource that could instead be used for our agriculture. For more than 30 years, a 180 million euro project has been underway between the two regions to connect the Occhito and Liscione dams, but it is only half completed.”
