Italy’s Southern Islands Drought Made 50% More Likely By Climate Change, Study Finds

Sardinia and Sicily have been experiencing “exceptional” drought conditions intensified by climate change, leading to water shortages and severely compromising agriculture, which both islands heavily rely on.

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The “extreme” drought affecting two major Italian islands was made 50% more likely by climate change and exacerbated further by the region’s ageing water infrastructure, a new attribution study has revealed.

A drought refers to a period of abnormally dry weather long enough to affect water resources and availability. Rising temperatures are altering the water cycle in many areas of the world, leading to higher evaporation rates that dry out soils faster, intensifying droughts.

In Sicily and Sardinia – the two largest islands in the Mediterranean, home to 5 and 1.6 million people, respectively – a year of “exceptionally low rainfall and persistent heat” have created the perfect conditions for the exceptional droughts, among the worst on record. In July, both islands were in a state of emergency as bone-dry conditions led to devastating wildfires that destroyed farmland and forests. Sicily accounted for 45% of wildfires so far this year; Sardinia for 10%.

Conducted by World Weather Attribution (WWA), an academic collaboration studying extreme event attribution, and published Wednesday, the analysis revealed that without human-driven warming, the droughts on both islands would not have been classified as “extreme.”

The burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat is the single-largest source of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the primary drivers of global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere and raising Earth’s surface temperature.

According to the UN, at least 1.84 billion people – nearly one in four people worldwide – across five continents experienced drought conditions in 2022 and 2023. If no action is taken, it is estimated that 700 million people will be at risk of being displaced by drought by 2030, and one in four children will live in areas with extreme water shortages by 2040. By the mid-century, more than 75% of the world’s population will be affected by droughts with an estimated 4.8-5.7 billion living in areas that are water-scarce for at least one month each year.

Sector ‘On Its Knees’

WWA predicted that the Italian islands will continue to experience exceptional droughts with further warming, with huge consequences on agriculture. Both Sicily and Sardinia heavily rely on agriculture and are responsible for about 10% and 7% of the country’s total agricultural output, respectively. The former mainly citrus fruits, olives, and grapes while the latter primarily grows wheat and barely.

Farming lobby Coldiretti said in June that more than 33,000 people working in the agricultural sector lost their job in Italy’s southern regions during the first trimester of 2024 owing to exceptionally dry and hot conditions.

“From Sicily to Puglia, from Basilicata to Sardinia, the damages linked to the lack of rain are multiplying,” the lobby groups said, adding that several crops have been “wiped out.” Wheat outputs alone dropped about 70%. In 2022, Italy’s wheat exports were valued at $216 million, making it the 25th largest exporter of wheat in the world. 

“The climate crisis is not ideological, it is a dramatic reality in Sicily,” Angelo Bonelli, spokesperson for the Green Europe political party, said at a rally in July, accusing the government of “leaving an entire region on its knees.”

“Farmers are uprooting vineyards, citrus groves, they are slaughtering animals because there is no water. This is a disastrous situation.”

Friederike Otto, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment and one of the study’s authors, said that climate change is making the islands “hotter, drier and less fertile.”

“Crops used to produce Italy’s iconic cuisine, like wheat and olives, are dying in ferocious heat well above 40°C,” Otto said, adding that stopping the burning of fossil fuels is the only way to prevent droughts from worsening further.

Ageing Infrastructure

The drought has also led to months-long water rationing across dozens of municipalities affecting both local residents and tourists.

Experts have repeatedly warned that ageing water infrastructure and inappropriate water managing systems are worsening water shortages on both islands, with the WWA study reinforcing these arguments.

Sicily relies on 29 dams for irrigation and drinking water, most of which were built more than four decades ago. According to regional figures, at the beginning of the year these dams collectively held 23% less water compared to the same time last year, owing to a combination of low rainfall and sediment accumulation, which over time has drastically reduced the amount of water these damn can store. This prompted local authorities to declare a state of emergency.

But ageing infrastructure in Sicily also affects reservoirs and aquifers, which serve approximately 5 million people. According to recent data by the national statistics bureau ISTAT, aging water systems in Sicily led to water losses of over 51% in 2022, approximately 240 million cubic meters. In Sardinia, despite advancements and heavy investments in smart water management systems in recent years, total water losses that year amounted to 52.8%.

To further exacerbate the situation are inadequate sewage systems and agricultural runoffs, which pollute water, coupled with very limited water purification mechanisms in place.

“Limiting water loss from ageing, leaky pipes and increasing storage capacity in Sardinia and Sicily will help reduce similar water shortages in low rainfall years,” said Maja Vahlberg, Climate risk consultant at Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre.

In June, Sicily received the first €92 million of a €1.6 billion regional fund aimed at strengthening water infrastructure and increasing drought resilience in the region.

The funding is “only the beginning” of a series of interventions to improve the situation, said Sicily’s president Roberto Schifani. “We will ensure that Sicilian citizens and entrepreneurs can receive concrete answers as soon as possible to fill the long-standing gaps in our water system.”