07/09/2026
Drought and water scarcity are becoming increasingly significant challenges for Italy, with impacts on the availability and quality of water resources, ecosystems, and agricultural, energy and productive activities. Addressing such a complex issue requires the integration of expertise and knowledge from different scientific disciplines.
With this objective in mind, in 2023 the Cnr Department of Earth System Sciences and Environmental Technologies (Dsstta) established the Working Group on “Drought, Water Scarcity and Water Crises”, coordinated by the Cnr Water Research Institute (Irsa). The Working Group brings together researchers from several Cnr institutes and was created to consolidate available scientific and technological knowledge, contributing to a better understanding of drought-related phenomena and to the sustainable management of water resources.
The activities of the Working Group resulted in a process of knowledge production and sharing that began in 2024 with the publication, by Cnr Edizioni, of the volume “Drought, Water Scarcity and Water Crises: The Contribution of Research to Supporting Water Budget Definition.” Intended for both the scientific community and public and private stakeholders involved in water resource management, the volume benefited from the contributions of approximately one hundred researchers, together with experts from Ispra, the Italian Civil Protection Department, and the Extraordinary Commissioner’s Structure for Water Scarcity.
The new Executive Summary, “Drought, Water Scarcity and Water Crises in Italy: An Executive Summary from a Scientific Perspective,” represents a further achievement of this process and brings to the attention of the international scientific community a synthesis of the main knowledge and issues related to drought and water scarcity in Italy.
The "Drought, Scarcity, and Water Crises" Working Group of the Cnr's Department of Earth System Science and Environmental Technologies presents an executive summary on water crises in Italy.
The document addresses the phenomenon through a multidisciplinary perspective, considering the various factors that influence both water availability and its management: from the characterization of drought events to meteorological, hydrological and hydrogeological monitoring; from impacts on water resources and ecosystems to issues related to water uses and governance.
Available free of charge on the Cnr website in English, the new publication expands the dissemination of this body of knowledge and also puts forward a series of recommendations for water resource management policies, with the aim of strengthening prevention, monitoring, planning and response capacities in the face of water crises.
Bibliographic reference: Cnr Edizioni, 2026. ISBN 978-88-8080-868-8.
Per informazioni:
Emanuele Romano
Cnr-Irsa
emanuele.romano@cnr.it
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