March 29, 2024

Po River – The Longest River in Italy – Dries Up

The task, which includes the involvement of Italian research companies such as the National Agency for New Technology, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) and the National Research Council (CNR), looks for to establish methods to determine marine heat waves and identify their effect on financial activities and marine ecosystems such as fishing.

The Po River is typically a wide stretch of murky water (as seen in the June 2020 image acquisition) however has actually now dried up with large areas of sand exposed (as seen in the June 2022 image acquisition).
The Po Valley is the most essential farming location in the country, as it produces around 40% of Italys food including wheat, rice, and tomatoes. With the ongoing dry spell, farmers are having a hard time to keep crops irrigated and numerous towns in the Po Valley have actually been asked to allocate water during the night in the middle of the drought.
Benjamin Koetz, Head of ESAs Sustainable Initiatives Office, stated, “According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, agriculture is taking in as much as 70% of freshwater and considering the increasing water shortage making use of water requires to be more efficient in this sector. For this function, ESA is preparing the Land Surface Temperature Monitoring Mission as part of the Copernicus Expansion Missions which will permit us to keep track of the evapotranspiration of crops at a field level and, with that, support sustainable watering practices.”
According to new results released by an ESA-funded project called CAREHeat, the Mediterranean Sea is currently withstanding a marine heatwave with temperature levels in May 2022 4 ° C( 7.2 ° F)greater than the average for the 1985-2005 duration. According to the findings, the surface area water temperature level hit peaks of over 23 ° C(73 ° F)
. The task, which includes the involvement of Italian research study firms such as the National Agency for New Technology, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) and the National Research Council (CNR), seeks to establish strategies to identify marine heat waves and determine their impact on marine ecosystems and economic activities such as fishing.

This Copernicus Sentinel-2 animation shows a part of the Po Valley, near Piacenza, and reveals how the river has actually considerably shrunk in between June 2020 and June 2022. Credit: Contains customized Copernicus Sentinel data (2020-22), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The Po River, the longest river in Italy, is hitting record low water levels after months without heavy rains. The Copernicus Sentinel-2 animation above programs a part of the Po Valley, near Piacenza (a city in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy), and exposes how the river has actually diminished significantly between June 2020 and June 2022.
Extending from the Alps in the northwest to the Adriatic Sea on the east coast, the vast waterway is a crucial source of water for a number of regions. It is used for drinking water, nourishing vast swathes of farming land, in addition to producing hydroelectric power throughout northern Italy.
Water in the Po Valley has actually now dropped to record-low levels, partly as a result of the absence of rainfall that northern Italy has actually been suffering, in addition to high temperature levels and an absence of snow in the mountains that feed the river. Numerous of these areas have now lacked any rain at all for more than 110 days, according to the Po River Observatory.