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The rains are reduced and the reservoirs are emptying. In Sardinia there is almost a water emergency. It is no coincidence that in some dams the ruins once submerged by water already emerge. Precisely to address what the rural world sees as the anticipation of a situation that tends to worsen, the representatives of Coldiretti have raised the alarm by urging the declaration of a state of calamity. The starting point is a fact: «In the reservoirs of the Sardinia region – they underlined – on January 1st there was a fifth less water compared to the same period of the previous year».
An element considered by experts to be “worrying” also in light of the temperatures which in the meantime have not dropped, as also happened on the days of the blackbird, those considered the coldest. «The problem is serious and worries a lot – says Luca Saba, director of Coldiretti Sardinia – because in some parts of the island, not only have the rainfall reduced but with the temperatures rising, an increase in irrigation in the fields is necessary» . With the result that the reservoirs continue to empty and the crops suffer.
Precisely to deal with this situation, since January the Central Sardinia Reclamation Consortium has banned the use of water for irrigation in all three sub-districts under its jurisdiction. A decision taken by those responsible to safeguard the remaining stocks. Anbi, the National Association of Land and Irrigation Water Management and Protection Consortia, also raised the problem. «Even in Sardinia – the association underlines – the situation regarding the reservoirs is serious. Some, in terms of volumes filled, are at their lowest levels for 25 years to date; overall, more than 50% of the water is missing in the basins, which could be retained. An example to illustrate the gravity of the situation is what was decided for the Posada district where, to guarantee drinking water use, irrigation was prohibited.”
For Massimo Gargano, general director of the Anbi, «the need to optimize the use of water resources through the efficiency of the country’s hydraulic network and the creation of new infrastructures capable of retaining a greater quantity of water on the territory to use it in times of need.” The topic of optimization has been at the center of the requests made by trade associations in Sardinia for some time. A solution which, as Luca Saba further underlines, could come from the so-called “interconnection”. The connection between the basins. «This is a solution that would allow us to systematize the entire resource and at the same time prevent floods from ending up in the sea».