Peschiera del Garda has overcome the shock of June 2nd.

Four weeks ago, on the Italian national holiday, around 2,500 young people from Milan and Turin with a migration background met for a flashmob party in the picturesque seaside resort on the southern shore of Lake Garda.

At the celebration, themed "L'Africa à Peschiera" (Africa in Peschiera), shop windows and café fixtures were smashed.

Cars were damaged, holidaymakers were harassed.

There were hardly any fights and stabbings, including sexualized assaults on young women.

Months of drought – now heat wave

Matthias Rub

Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta based in Rome.

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Now things are getting quieter again in Peschiera.

Albeit very touristy.

Summer visitors populate beaches and restaurants, waterfront promenades and bike paths.

The colorful blossoms of the flower boxes on the bridge railings harmonize splendidly with the turquoise of the Mincio River.

It flows out of Lake Garda near Peschiera and, almost 80 kilometers to the south-east, flows into the Po.

But "il Grande Fiume" has become a trickle in many places because of the months of drought, which is now accompanied by a heat wave.

The "big river" carries barely 20 percent of the usual amount of water at the end of June.

The drought hasn't been this bad in 70 years.

Since the beginning of the year, only 40 to 50 percent of the average amount of rain has fallen in Northern Italy.

Many tributaries of the Po have almost completely dried up.

And because hardly a third of the usual amount of snow was recorded in the Alps and the Dolomites in winter, meltwater is no longer to be expected.

But the Mincio has water, from Lake Garda, the largest water reservoir in northern Italy with a capacity of 50 cubic kilometers.

It is true that Lake Garda also has less water than the average in recent years.

However, it is still 63 percent full, while the water levels in Lake Maggiore and Lake Como are approaching historic lows.

Only 20 percent water left in the Po River

A good 60 percent water in Lake Garda, but only 20 percent in the Po: the people from the Po Valley are demanding that the weirs on the Mincio be opened so that urgently needed water can be supplied to the Po via its tributary.

And cite other percentages: More than 40 percent of Italy's agricultural production is generated in the fertile lowlands of the Po, and drought and heat have already destroyed 80 percent of the sugar beet harvest, half of the soybean production and 25 to 30 percent of the corn and grain harvest.

Without additional water for the irrigation systems, further losses threatened.

And that at a time when deliveries from the Ukraine are completely or partially missing due to the Russian war of aggression.

But the community of towns on Lake Garda do not want to hear anything about increased water extraction from the lake.

Pierlucio Ceresa, general secretary of the Association of Municipalities, says: “In order to heal the Po, which is plagued by drought, we would not have to channel 20 to 30 cubic meters of water per second into the Mincio, but up to 500 cubic meters.

But even that would be a pointless endeavor.

In addition to the sick bottom, we would also have a sick Lake Garda.”

For weeks, the northern Italian regions of Piedmont, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto have been demanding that Rome impose a state of emergency across the country because of the drought.

Then the government in Rome would have to mediate and decide in the "water war" between the regions and provinces according to a national prioritization plan.

And from Rome, so it is hoped, additional aid money would flow to the areas particularly affected by the drought.

Drinking water is lost

The head of Italian civil protection, Fabrizio Curcio, announced earlier this week that work on a national emergency plan for the water supply was in full swing, and that the nationwide state of emergency could be declared at the beginning of July.

An end to the extreme heat wave caused by a stable high pressure area over Africa is not in sight before July 5th.

Notable precipitation is not expected for the next ten days.

And the hottest and driest months of July and August are yet to come.

The fact that the head of civil protection can no longer rule out drinking water rationing throughout the country is an indication that there is another reason for the water crisis in Italy in addition to the lack of rainfall.

According to the Italian Statistical Office, an average of 42 percent of the treated drinking water is lost during storage in cisterns and especially when it flows through the dilapidated pipe network.

In Catania, Sicily, almost 55 percent of the drinking water seeps away, in Milan around 19 percent is lost.

Due to the water shortage, the water supply has been interrupted for around two weeks between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. in almost 200 municipalities in northern Italy.

Although households and businesses hardly use any water at night, the measure makes sense: it seeps away less.

Of the 8.2 billion cubic meters of drinking water that is fed into the public mains every year, only 4.7 billion cubic meters reach consumers, and 3.5 billion cubic meters are lost.

Almost 900 million euros from the EU fund for the post-pandemic reconstruction of Italy are therefore to be spent on laying 25,000 kilometers of new water pipes.

Of course, these measures come too late for the historic drought and water scarcity of 2022.