{"id":11253,"date":"2024-05-20T11:50:29","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T10:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cimafoundation.org\/tema\/drought\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T11:23:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T10:23:48","slug":"drought","status":"publish","type":"focus","link":"https:\/\/www.cimafoundation.org\/en\/focus\/drought\/","title":{"rendered":"Drought"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Drought<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t
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Overview<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Drought is a prolonged period of reduced water availability, often leading to an imbalance between water supply and demand. It manifests as a progressive process, beginning with a lack of precipitation (meteorological drought) and extending to reduced water availability in rivers or reservoirs (hydrological drought) and soils (agricultural drought). Each type of drought has distinct effects on water availability for natural systems and human uses, including domestic, agricultural, industrial, and energy sectors.

Due to the climate crisis and current practices in water resource use and land management, droughts are increasing globally in frequency, intensity, spatial extent, and duration. Climate change exacerbates this issue by raising global temperatures and amplifying climate variability. Recently, Italy experienced exceptionally severe drought conditions between 2022 and 2024, and similar events have occurred in other vulnerable regions such as California, Australia, South America, the Asia-Pacific, and parts of Africa. These cases demonstrate the growing complexity of managing droughts worldwide. <\/p>

Drought is inherently a slow-onset phenomenon. It does not represent a sudden crisis but rather a systemic risk that evolves over time<\/strong>, requiring proactive management. Addressing drought necessitates monitoring, early warning systems based on robust scientific data, and shared strategies for anticipatory actions and adaptation plans aimed at mitigating impacts. CIMA Research Foundation employs a comprehensive approach combining multi-scale monitoring, satellite analysis, and hydrological models to assess and forecast water scarcity in a changing climate across national, European, and global contexts. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Drought in Italy<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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CIMA Research Foundation\u2019s activities in Italy focus on continuous drought monitoring by integrating climatic, hydrological, and satellite data to provide spatially distributed indicators of various drought types. We use a broad range of variables, including precipitation anomalies, temperature, soil moisture, snowpack levels, evapotranspiration, and streamflows, to analyze drought risk from all relevant hydrological perspectives. This approach helps identify critical water availability issues and supports adaptation strategies, particularly during prolonged dry spells. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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An important component of this work involves monitoring artificial reservoirs using Sentinel-2 satellite data. These data enable near-real-time calculations of water surface coverage percentages, comparing current levels with historical basin extents and detecting monthly anomalies in water availability. This monitoring system, currently in an experimental phase (Cenci et al., 2024)<\/a>, is instrumental for sustainable water resource management, crisis prevention, and mitigating the impacts of severe drought periods. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The video animation shows the evolution of the water surface extent of the Fanaco Lake (a reservoir located in Sicily, Southern Italy) by means of a series of images acquired by the Sentine-2 (S2) constellation between November 2022 and November 2024.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Beyond hydrological analysis, CIMA Research Foundation also examines the social and legal dimensions of drought. This includes analyzing municipal ordinances and court rulings related to water crises to understand conflicts that may arise between citizens, institutions, and businesses, especially concerning the emerging issue of snow drought impacts in mountain areas. This multidisciplinary approach enables us to provide technical and scientific support to local authorities, fostering constructive dialogue and shared solutions for critical periods. <\/p>

By combining technological innovation, multidisciplinary analysis, and institutional dialogue, CIMA Research Foundation enhances the resilience of Italian territories to drought-related risks.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Avanzi, F., Munerol, F., Milelli, M. et al. Winter snow deficit was a harbinger of summer 2022 socio-hydrologic drought in the Po Basin, Italy. Commun Earth Environ 5, 64 (2024). https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s43247-024-01222-z<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Drought in Europe<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The need for coordinated and centralized early warning systems (EWS) at the European level for drought management led to the development of the European Drought Observatory (EDO) and the Global Drought Observatory (GDO) by the Copernicus Emergency Management Service. In this context, CIMA Research Foundation collaborates with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) to enhance drought monitoring by strengthening the infrastructure of EDO and GDO, developing new predictive methodologies, and refining procedures for calculating and visualizing the indicators that form the core of these observatories’ informational content. As a result, EDO and GDO have become reference tools for European governments, policymakers, and stakeholders in the water, energy, and agricultural sectors. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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