Drought alarm in Italy. The Lake Garda reached its lowest level since 1953: it is now only 45.8 centimeters above the hydrometric zero, i.e. the altitude above mean sea level established as a conventional reference for this basin, compared to an average of 109 centimeters for the last 70 years. The data indicate this satellite Sentinel-2within the European Observatory on Climate Change.
Why you have to worry Lake Garda is a critical freshwater reservoir and its lowering now threatens its ability to support agriculture, local communities, tourism and shipping. Lake Garda or Benaco is the largest Italian lake, with an area of about 370 square kilometers, third in depth after Lake Como and Maggiore. The average water level of Garda, which is about 65 meters above sea level, undergoes rather limited seasonal variations, especially when compared to the other large pre-Alpine lakes: this makes the recent drop even more worrying.
Satellite images The new snapshot of the lake captured by satellites adds to the others that testify to the risk of drought in Italy and in Europe: the photograph of the Po taken by the Cosmo-SkyMed constellation, by the Italian Space Agency and the Ministry of Defence, is from a few weeks ago. which testifies to the changes that have occurred in the river due to drought. Similarly, images from the European Space Agency’s Smos satellite show that, in much of south-western Europe, soil moisture is below average, due to a particularly dry winter and the second warmest ever registered.