Italy in grips of severe drought as Po river dries up | DW News 

And it is always Don Camilo and Peppone!!!

Bit like the Ob in Siberia.

I think it’s aimed at Americans. I cannot imagine any European who did not learn about it.

@@linchen008 a masterpiece

The only Italian river Ihad heard of was tiber 😅

Don’t blame this on co2

That sounds expensive... Just saying, most people making decisions about now, won't be around long enough to really feel the impact.

@@denniswoycheshen not necessarily expensive, but true many problems stems from lack of initiative and mismanagement.

@@martincassels7995 nobody did, and there is a plan... Now isn't that wonderful?

@@martincassels7995 obviously this is Vladimir Putin's fault!

Indeed. This is just the beginning of the beginning of the end.

Climate change is real!

@@hangender It's been dragging on worse than The Walking Dead for decades now. End it.

I was a poor Farmer in Egypt but now I'm Rich through the help of Richard scote

I'm New here.. First time hearing about Mr Richard

Also the glaciers are gone likely permanently affecting flow. This is happening all over the world.

Extreme weather events, droughts, floods, heatwaves are only going to increase, given the predictions made by scientists decades ago and the more recent increased frequencies of such events.

@@jaaksavat7916 The feedback effects are already showing their effects, the time line for temperature increases and ecosystem destruction seems 10-20 years faster than most commonly predicted when I was growing up. By 2040-2050 there wont be enough rainfall, ground water, and/or top soil in the right places to feed us along currents transport routes, and there won't be any wild forests or fish stocks left in warming oceans to supplement that deficiency. I suspect things will be so bad by then that most countries will have complete systems and infrastructure collapse with everyone fending for themselves. Migrating, fighting, laying down too hungry to run.

Harald Lesch talked about this (I think about) 10 years ago. He said, around 2050 big parts of Italy, Spain, Greece and so on won't be habitable anymore for many months of the year. Or at least not for a popolus that big.

The long-term solution is rapide reduction in greenhouse gas emissions

This is nature getting angry at us humans, we can’t reverse it, climate change is happening at a faster rate everywhere in the world.

No, no, no! Stop making sense! Modern humans can't handle it. You want to start a revolution, peasant? Shhhhh... 🤫🙈🙉🙊

what if i flush my toilet 1000 times a day?

@@Curling_Rack that sounds like a personality disorder

Even tactics like moving downed trees so they are roughly horizontal to steep slopes increases water absorption and at least mitigates stream rises. Also erosion. Lots of work and in extreme cases helps to have well trained mules along with your come hither. Need comprehensive well funded programs to accompany financing canals etc. none of this is really new.

foreste con gli orsi nella valle del po? forse al tempo dei galli o dei longobardi

Wouldn't reforestation use more water? That is what my experience has been. Are you sure you know what you are talking about? Plus in dry seasons like this, reforestation would put them at great risk or forest fire. The US tried this is some regions and some of the reforestation has stayed (part of FDR's New Deal), but most of it burned taking homes and towns with it.

@@rabbit251 I have experience in my family property in the area. In Bergamo province. We never watered the trees that we planted, and survival rates have been high. If you are investing into a silvopastural system you may want to irrigate your trees for the first 2 to 5 years, but that's it. Considering that corn is one the most water exigent plant that you can ever grow, and that in the summer season we rarely have rains (that is the growing season for corn), all farmers use irrigation for growing the crop. Check out New Forest Farm in Wisconsin. He is doing great in the US with his project.

@@rabbit251 we need to switch to perennial crops and not annuals. Annuals erode the soil and use more water, perennials build soil, hold water, and need less of it. That and stop eating meat/dairy/eggs. While we’re at it, Europe will also need to switch ASAP to solar/wind, battery storage, electric vehicles. Not just to give a finger to Russia, but so we avoid turning this planet into Venus, which has extreme CO2 in its atmosphere with surface temperatures of about 500 degrees F.

Assolutamente vero. Siamo in mano a dilettanti di fronte al disastro.

Was thinking the same thing, upbeat music to an expert saying farmers are reaching their limits..

Very very sad scenario mate that's terrible stuff feel sad for you and others from a greek irsh Scottish Aussie from Marcus in australia tack care.

Cheers mate have a great day from Marcus in australia.

@@paulamaloney1898 your comment is just like that misplaced upbeat music...

these water bombs are also way more common in Eastern Europe than before

Bringing sand to the Sahara.... Thinking with our feet will only make us step ahead towards disasters. Pun intended.

Lol

San Pellegrino is available in N.America ;-)

I would say that mineral water is bit different case. You know, you don't use san Pellegrino for thinks like cooking, showering or watering your plants.

There is not lack of mineral waters for drinking, there is a lack of water for agriculture and hydroelectric plants

Plant trees instead of giant dead field like the awfull view of dead landscape at 5:05 :(. Trees absobrb CO2, keep 50% of water in soils to grow underground waters, and 50% in air for clouds and rains, refreshing the climate at the same time.

@steveo1791 They took all the trees and they put them in a tree museum, and they charged the people a dollar and a half just to see 'em.

@@ThePopolong regenerative farming with the correct crop balance removes more co2 than trees and can start the very next season, trees take a long time to grow.

@@nickthorp1624 👆👆

@@ThePopolong trees don't provide the amount of food that a field of grain does

Every animal lives with nature, except humans that destroy it. Smh.. 😔

@@RobJa Wrong. What does a bunny do? It destroys the grass, poops rabbit droppings, and digs up the land. What do bacteria do? Exact same, they eat up their nutrients, depriving others of it, and excrete waste. Humans are no different from all other life on earth, they eat money, and sh1t work!

Simple solution is to privatize water, and not subsidize farmers (or anyone elses) use of water. That way, when water becomes scarce the price of water will rise, in response, farmers will use less. Supply goes down, demand remains the same, price goes up. No government intervention required.

Yeah yeah, always agricolture is the problem, in this area more than 20% of the land is concrete. I think that is significant very worst than agricolture it self

Totally Agree

Per fare un esempio, l'80% del Veneto è cementificato, ci vivo e stanno continuando a costruire e buttare cemento anche dove non serve, mi fa arrabbiare

growing crops on biofilm also reduces waterusage greatly, and supresses weeds so u don't need to spray herbicides anymore

@@wardwyseur That’s so cool! Also GMO’ed Cordycepts mushroom “traps” can target a specific insect rather than all of them. Never understand why it’s not more common.

@@michelangelomissoni945 very good idea! But there still the problem that most of the irrigation that we use is based with plumbing from 60's and 70's. Maybe we should start with that and afther that working up to droplet irtigation and even invest in OGM

@@pietrovezzaro1530 yeah also because ~40% of aqueduct's water is lost because of old installations/none-bad maintenance

@@michelangelomissoni945 gmo cordyceps is the last thing I want to see

Summarized by making the cost of farming increase around 10 times....

Because it's being diverted to a bunch of liberals in California that keep voting for the democrats

Oof

I watch videos about Lake Mead and the Hoover dam from time to time. It's devastating. There is also some footage from the 70s when even the emergency spillways flooded. That will not happen again some time soon. 😔

Chemtrails, the World Economic Forum is already coming out talking about it (as if they weren't used for decades prior)

@@gigachad6885 More like: GIGASMOOTHBRAIN.

@@gigachad6885 tard

@@gigachad6885 Cringe

Ma per tutti, certo al Nord sta facendo danni enormi ma anche qui in Lucania (Basilicata) la terra é quasi un deserto, il nostro acquedotto fornisce anche acqua alla Puglia, e questo sta mettendo in pericolo anche la nostra produzione agricola...

greed demands as much mono-culture as possible. strip the earth and pay the price.

Warm places are doomed. Seek water security and cooler climates. Go now and beat the stampede.

@@castorchua Search Permaculture green the desert project with Geoff Lawton

@@ahmadhasif979 I'm not interested in what is possible, lots of things are possible. That has nothing to do with what comes next.

@RogerWilco Assuming these things truly are long term, its hardly an existential crisis. Farmers will adapt, growing different crops, farming in different ways. And i wouldn't worry about these ridiculous claims of "global famine", after all, if the climate really is warming, vast swathes of Siberia and Canada will be opened up to farming and easy port access. This is not a climate crisis, this is people with power trying to scare us all into giving them even more power.

@@castorchua not really, warm regions are adapted to the heat unlike west europe and some parts of USA.

There are no drought's in Canada. Stop trying to be important karen

I know but they 75% of people on earth man will say its a myth or some radical myth people dont really take anything serious . they here overpopulation and think its a joke . also the same issues with climate change they think its some myth .they dont take anything serious. Even worse we have fiat money systems based off infinity growth For the federal. Reserve to keep this game of degrading earth to keep the fiat capitalism debt based currency system going . The fed says the governments ow them the governments say the people ow them We have a economic system which encourages this climate change and overpopulation from effects of those systems worth leaders pretty much takes the climate change and overpopulation situation as a joke

Absolutely - the one discussion that never happens. Sometimes our collective denial is astounding.

@@sroberts605 @j j You two first.

@@joeblogs6598 Is that all you can manage?

@@sroberts605 What would you have us all do?

The authorities know that society faces a huge expense and delay, to do even part of what you want. There is even legacy law that must be amended. This must be done carefully and it will take decades to reorder Europe to accommodate 'tropical weather patterns'. The world won't be made perfect in accordance to the desires of millennials.

This is natural it happens everywere and it comes and goes!Greece for the last few years is having record snowfalls and although 10 years ago we had problems with the level of the water in many lakes the last few years they are more than full!Especialy the last season we had snowfalls in record amounts so much that a few tall mountains even today have a bit of snow in some parts of them!

not really. the colorado drains a natually much dryer area

Yeah, it will be short lasting, because things are only getting worse, as long as we don't care about the future of our planet.

It's at a point where the only way it'll be a short lasting experience is if it spells our end, as prices for food and now water, will just continue to climb untill it is no longer affordable to live for the average person. Then we are looking at treading the path of another great depression.

I thought someone said climate change isn't real?

Absolutely correct our politicians and corporations have done absolutely nothing to prevent this and the average citizen will be left to deal with it.

I assume your familiar with agricultural statistics showing that production is up and up and up decade after decade and in fact the fastest improvements in the history of all humanity have been the in the last generation? Italy for instance is a region where yields are quite a bit higher than they were a generation ago. As is the case in almost every other functional part of the world.

For over 10 years the concern has been ridiculed as alarmist. Yes, the alarm bells have been ringing.

@@ssssaa2 are you implying that all is well?

Or intensify it's usage, as it's done in Israel where every bit of vegetation is covered by drip irrigation system

How would you suggest any sort of control over such transfer of water? Starting with who determines what areas need it? As example, much of the American far west is really desert its only through huge volumes of water consumed as irrigation that make it anywhere close to "green", at what point does that area NOT get any more water from outside its geographical borders? Maybe humans shouldn't be living in certain places to begin with, I mean its pretty tough to complain about flooding if you choose to build on a flood plain...

Ireland becomes the Saudi Arabia of water/rain

@Shawn Elliott You may be correct. This does not require government intervention though.

@@joeblogs6598 Those large scale projects never work without government intervention.

In America they think it's Po folk in🤣 their South.

@@spaniardsrmoors6817 😂😂😂

... this was.

I live in the area the video talked about, I my city we have a creek and it is standard practice to keep plats to grow into its bed to slow the flow

In my neighborhood we have this cool little stream:) and my friend have a little stream on his property:D

MONEY MONEY abba made money from that tune in fact they were a bigger export than lorry industry

The river is dry.

@Balaji it isn't "lacking of knowledge" the problem, it's the greed and not wanting to solve sticky situations because they might upset few people with power/money. Italy has plenty of good things as much as horrible egotistical and unprofessional people in position of importance. It's disheartening.

@@paolagrando5079 I completely agree 💯👍.

South is more responsible for water? You drunk man?

@@samfrost9957 In theory, because in general, the south if Italy has always had less water then the north there should be a bit of more care about not wasting it.

We've faced an extraordinary situation with 4 months, 1/3 of the entire year, without a single drop of rain in the winter. Mountains were completely dried and you're blaming farmers for the lack of water? You don't even have any idea of what you're talking about

The Hippies call this Karma.

Actually there is a drainage carnel where I live near, it's completely covered by nature at the top, water still flows thankfully

This fixes the lack of snow how? its only going to get worse, alot worse

@@DKTAz00 The man in the video does not say that renaturation would increase the amount of snow.

@@craigb8228 Danke! Das wusste ich nicht.

Yes, but all of those ones were not caused by humans and all of those ones were able to right themselves because nothing in the atmosphere was out of balance. Do try to keep up, climate change is not a new phenomena.

The earth is 5 billion years old GET IT !!!!

@John Wakamatsu The Southwest is having trouble because people are trying to farm in a desert. If the government stops subsiding farmers water bills, they will use less water. In turn the water requirements will be reduced.

I went from washing my corvette every weekend to only washing it once a month.

Looooool

The sea wall for Venice is working...

you are absolutely right

@Prateek singh bhadouria "People's mindset needs to be changed accordingly." How do you expect to do that? Use the government to force them to do it?

@@joeblogs6598 Things implemented by force never lasts. Campaign starting from village level to city level, making people aware about pro and cons of it. Innovation to learn to conserve water ,reduction of water consumption from countries like Arabs, Israel. People at ground level are main resources, needs to be educated on how to conserve. Government role is just to educate, provide monetary help.

@@Prateeksinghbhadouria "Government role is just to educate, provide monetary help." The issue with that, is how government gets the money to pay for that education and monetary help. Government gets money by taxation. Taxation is peoples money taken with force by the government. Whenever you use the government to do anything, you are inherently using force.

@@joeblogs6598 on one side u could be right but think on the other side ,where can government get the money from??? Country with poor taxation mostly lack developmental projects...there are many examples where either people evade taxes or corruption is there. U can't go for loans every time. Only thing I feel, community planning at village level where people can mobilise monetary resources and build water conservation barriers , grow water scarce crops, recycle water....but this will take time...NGO's can help.

Do you mean to re-marsh all the region?

@@LuisAldamiz he means other people must reorder their lives, but not him. Notice he didn't mention household use of water.

@@someotherdude - Household use of water is quite meaningless, what wastes water is agriculture, industry and posh luxuries like golf courses and swimming pools. I live under the state called Spain, now experiencing a brutal drought, with water reservoirs as low as 28% in some areaas (Andalusia) and the analyses are very clear: more than 2/3 of water is wasted on irrigation of cash-crop farms (which largely produce for Northern Europe with near-slave labor force from Morocco). Regions like Madrid, also in the semi-arid south but without relevant agriculture, are much much better off (above 60%), precisely because water is mostly used for household use and not agriculture and other wasteful practices.

It's what we do best, Nothing.

@@mikebocchinfuso9437 I would say it is the second thing you do best. The firs is turning any situation to opportunity for profit. So here is my proposal: Collect all treated wastewater from coastal cities and sell it for irrigation.

dumbest statement ever

Energy and financially expensive.

@@julianshepherd2038 Not that much actually. E.g. for mechanical vapor compression you need just 7 to 12 kWh of electricity per cubic metre, for reverse osmosis it should be some 4 to 6 kWh, but this process has some issues with certain ions. If we would not take in account price of machinery and labour, then the price of water should not exceed some 1.2 per cubic metre if the power will came from new nuclear. For any other source, BTW this perhaps can be used asi variable load on grid, it coupled with some reservoirs, the electricity price could be significantly lower. (Well once we will solve those current supply issues, but maybe Italy can significantly boost it's solar sector, just as Balkans, Greece and other southern regions.)

@@MrToradragon Not that much? Is that why it's installed every it is needed? Desalination is incredibly expensive, energy intensive, and environmentally challenging, as the brine needs to be dumped. The technology has come a long way, but there is a reason it is effectively limited to the oil barons of the middle east

Desalination also is very detrimental to marine life, in addition to being very expensive to operate, because you have to suck in sea water via a large inlet pipe, endangering marine life trapped within it. You also have to dispose of the massive amounts of salt after all the desalination process. You have to weigh this very carefully. It is the last option. There's a reason why it is not the quickest solution to every drought problem. Most of the countries look for cheaper and safer alternatives.

@@marcob1729 The price of desalinated water, I have looked for it, is between 0.5 and 1.2 USD per cubic metre. I would say that it is quite reasonable price.

Si sta già facendo.

it is not cheery at all. More a kind of melodramatic, ironic, sad and playful tone to it. But I guess perception can vary.

I found the music inappropriate and way too loud

Correction: water IS life on our planet

I was checking the comments for just this, I thought I was the only one who thought it crazy to use such music when the story is far from a happy one.

Climate change is real as it has been for billions of years, not man made.

Well it is also something that cannot be solved on an individual level. Things like "having no facilities near where you live" or "all houses that are built have a short life and high energy consumption" cannot be solved by individuals.

Truly 🙂

As an Italian, I really hope so

The Dutch are really good with controlling excess water, but can they really help with a dearth of water? No, Israel has more knowledge with how to survive with a lack of water.

Would the Netherlands know how to manage a rain fall from Jan to June of only 170mm.

Talks with engineers from other countries would definitely be useful, but bear in mind that the Netherlands have a different geography than Italy. As an example, there are sismic areas and volcanos in one and not in the other.

It's a real shame that the US were leading the denial for so long - during much of the period when we could have had a real affect - from Europe we could only do our own thing and try to persuade...

see a doctor mate you'll need more than medicine

Ahahahhah

exactly. they had 25 years to prepare for this. the peeps that warned about this happening were mocked, ridiculed.

How do you guys suppose we address this "anthroprogenic climate change"?

The only problem is: most of the "climate change" predictions from 25 years ago didn't come true. Drought wasn't even one of the predictions of global warming because, as climate scientists explained to you just six month ago for the Ahrtal flooding, warmer air carries more water not less. It's tempting to use climate change as a catch all for weather you don't like but then you move from science to superstition.

Should be strategically planned so aid to put farmers demand as priority if you don’t hunger spread in near future

Party music!

money that he is filmento

It is highly probable.

Sure a new type of irrigation could help. But yhe other face of the medal is that our agricultural irrigation system belongs to the Romans. We have (whats remains)the agricultural ecosystem based on it. Switching type of irrigation would be the end of the agricultural ecosystem and nontheless increment the deforestation of the tree lines that delimit the field parcel (known as "centuriazione romana") and the consequencial loss of landscape.

@@Doppiovetro thanks for you input. I can't discuss this here in detail but a change in irrigation systems would only be one aspect. Others would be changing the type of crops that are grown, changing the type of trees/bushes that are planted for soil and crop protection. Further means might be applied on the side of infrastructure such as the construction of various types of retaining structures that can hold excess water for use during the dry season, The climate situation is changing fast but not so abruptly that adaptation would be impossible. For example, in the Padana they are growing rice which needs a large amount of water. This is a "new" development as the Romans didn^t know this crop. Perhaps those kinds of crops would have to be replaced. So yes, the changing climate might mean the modification and adaptation of traditional agriculture (which is as in the case of rice not so traditional) but it certainly doesn't mean the end of agriculture as such. From that point we are far far awawy.

Thanks to the rising temperatures we can restore the Roman Empire! All this climate change thing seems pretty good actually

Fun fact: decades ago they found a Roman merchant ship marooned in the Po river's delta (which was a vast swamp in the past), with its bottom half preserved by the mud along with its cargo of lead ingots and amphorae, and the personal belongings abandoned by the crew and passengers, which were civilians and some soldiers. Not to mention the lost Etruscan city of Spina, rediscovered buried under the brackish water valleys next to the river. So you're not so far off lol

@@hilariousbenjamin5614 that is awesome. I like the weather events that reveal ancient stuff....not that we want any collateral damage along with it

@@JK-br1mu yeah, it's been a mix of "ooh good opportunity to go looking for stuff" (in the river bed they've also found prehistoric megafauna fossils, along with the WWII relics. Not to mention what they might find in the Tiber river, which is also low due to the drought) and "we're doomed", very conflicting emotions to say the least

DW IS the big media ;)

Outside the US your drought is well known. The west coast aquifer including the lake Mead, the mid west/east underground water plateau is drying out, only the east coast isn’t that bad due to hurricanes and the favorable conditions of the Atlantic climate. And almost forgot about wildfires. Few areas like the northwest and northeast isn’t suffering from drought yet. But I saw some videos from northeast Canada that the soil is actually dry and the temperatures are well above the seasonal normal. So it was reported about, but the Po valley in Italia have never been so dry and the nearby regions are in the same position. I’m just maybe 100 miles east of it but we have the same climate. Rain “bombs” like they said. We hadn’t any rain season for at least 2 years and the subterranean water basin is dry and low. So what is really missing is a comprehensive report around the world to show people what is really happening. And the climate is changing naturally but with a really really strong support from our industry and transportation etc. of course in the worst possible way.