"The Land Is Becoming Desert" - Farms Failing, Reservoirs Draining As Sicily Turns Into Tunisia

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For the first time in four generations of his family’s farming history, Vito Amantia’s threshers have lain silent this year. The 650,000kg of wheat that his farm would usually produce in a year has been lost, parched and withered under the scorching sun and relentless drought. “A seasoned farmer doesn’t need to check the weather forecast to understand what the weather will be like,” says Amantia, 68, who farms on the Catania plain in eastern Sicily. “Already last January, I knew it would be a disastrous year. The wheat seedlings that normally reached 80cm stopped at 5cm. Then they dried up.”

Sicily is grappling with one of the most serious water crises in its history. The island, the largest and most populous in the Mediterranean, where a European record high temperature of 48.8C was reached in 2021, is at risk of desertification. In the last six months of 2023, only 150mm of rain fell, and in May, the government in Rome declared a state of emergency. But while it poses an existential threat for many local people, the water crisis isn’t deterring tourists. Like many parts of southern Europe, Sicily finds itself caught between water scarcity and a soaring influx of visitors who, despite the additional pressure they place on resources, remain appreciated as one of the main drivers of the economy.

Because of the climate emergency, according to the Italian National Research Council, a staggering 70% of Sicily is at risk of desertification. Most of the island’s lakes are already almost dry. The artificial lake of Fanaco, in central Sicily, once had a capacity of 20m cubic metres of water, but today holds just 300,000. Reduced to mere mud puddles, reservoirs emanate a strong smell of dead and rotting fish. Faced with water rationing, businesses have been forced to shut down and thousands of families are storing supplies of water containers in their homes for washing or cooking. According to the National Association of the Agricultural Water Board, some reservoirs designated for drinking water were operating at just 10% of capacity in March.

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Traditionally, drinking water in the island is sourced from aquifers, subterranean rock layers saturated with water, while water for agriculture is stored in large tanks constructed after the second world war. Both systems rely on winter rainfall, which is increasingly scarce. And for three decades, essential maintenance to the irrigation network has been neglected. “While large hotels in the drought-affected areas, like the province of Agrigento, have a range of infrastructure in place to provide water to their guests, smaller businesses with fewer resources are suffering,” Mulder says. Giuseppe Friscia, who runs a B&B in Sciacca in Agrigento province, has bought a warehouse where he has installed water tanks capable of holding up to 10,000 litres. “Some B&Bs are forced to call private water trucks and pay €90(£77) each time to fill their tanks,’’ he says.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/19/the-land-is-becoming-desert-drought-pushes-sicilys-farming-heritage-to-the-brink

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