Christian Message Boards: Italy struggles with drought crisis

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Posted by Kindgo (Member # 2) on :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_2137000/2137280.stm

By David Willey
BBC correspondent in Rome

Police patrol the precious water sources to prevent theft

Italy plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars combating a drought that has emptied reservoirs and withered crops in the south of the country.
Four regions have already declared a state of emergency, and the Italian authorities have announced that due to an exceptionally hot summer, fire has already destroyed twice as much forest land as at this time last year.

All week, government ministers have been meeting to draw up plans and find extra money for drought relief.

The latest government plan is expected to be approved at a full cabinet meeting on Friday.

Leaky pipes

Temperatures of 40C and above combined with a lack of water for irrigation have left crops withered and dying.

People are buying extra water because of the irregular supply

The tourist industry is threatened by the irregular water supply, and there is widespread theft of water in southern Italy, both by small farmers and by the Sicilian mafia.

To compound the water crisis, Italy has leaky reservoirs and antiquated pipeline systems which lose up to 40% of their water before it reaches the consumer.

Now, the government has decided to act. It says it will provide millions of euros in compensation to farmers ruined by the drought. Some of the aid will come in the form of tax relief.

Aid package

Probably due to global warming, rainfall has diminished by a quarter in Italy during the last decade.

Meanwhile a leading environmental organisation has warned that forest fires rampaging through Mediterranean countries this year will cause loss of bio-diversity and lead to eventual desertification because of soil erosion.

Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece are the worst-affected countries.

Pedro Regato, an expert from the World Wide Fund for Nature, told the BBC that European Union governments are wrong to invest more money in extinguishing forest fires.

Instead they should prevent them breaking out in the first place, through better management practices.

He also criticised what he called the perverse system by which temporary fire-fighters are recruited each summer - who often set fires instead of extinguishing them in the mistaken belief that this guarantees them permanent jobs.