Italy's Largest Waterway in Danger
How Climate Change Threatens the Po River
People whose livelihoods depend on Italy's longest river, the Po, are desperate. Can the vicious cycles of droughts and floods that cause hundreds of millions of euros in damages be stopped?
By Frank Hornig und Francesco Collini and Gianmarco Maraviglia (Photos)
Massimo Manavella leans against the railing outside his mountain hut and gazes down into the valley. He's waiting, as he so often does, for rain.
"When the clouds rise up from below, it’s a good sign," he says.
But on this April morning, the sun beats down instead of the rain – onto his head and onto the Alpino Selerries, located in a hanging valley at an altitude of 2,023 meters (6,637 feet) and looking down into Val Chisone.
"Every time we are expecting precipitation, it never comes," says the 53-year-old, a friendly man with a full beard and his hair tied back in a bun.
It hasn’t rained or snowed here for weeks, and instead of a verdant green, the meadows are all brown.
The sight, says Manavella, who runs the mountain hut, reminds him of the barren mountains of Yemen.
And without water, he might as well close the doors of the lodge, which can sleep up to 70.
Manavella lives in Cottian Alps, the region west of Turin from which Italy’s Po River originates before flowing eastward between Milan and Parma and finally emptying into the Adriatic.
Winters with little snow, shrinking glaciers, fields that alternate between drought and flooding, heat waves and hailstorms: Italy’s longest river has become an alarming example of the catastrophic effects of global warming.
A trip along the Po shows just how dramatically the lives of millions of people have already been changed by climate change and what might soon befall other regions of Europe that may have thus far been spared.
And it also shows how some people are trying to deal with the effects of the changing climate.
A herd of at least 40 chamois bounds up the hillside as Manavella talks about what climate change means for him.
For the last four winters, he says, his local mountains have been unrecognizable.
There simply hasn’t been enough snow.
"The winters in 2019 and 2020 were miserable," he says, "and 2021 and 2022 were catastrophic."
Manavella leads the way along a trail up the mountain, clouds of dust puffing up with each step.
After a quarter of an hour, he stops next to a waterfall. "You can’t imagine how wonderful it is to hear the splashing of the water," he says.
"It was my 17th winter up here.
I'd never before experienced such a thing." Massimo Manavella
"It was my 17th winter up here. I'd never before experienced such a thing." Massimo Manavella Foto: Gianmarco Maraviglia / DER SPIEGEL
The waterfall near the mountain hut operated by Massimo Manavella: "You can't imagine how wonderful it is to hear the splashing of the water." Foto: Gianmarco Maraviglia / DER SPIEGELFor how much longer will he be able to hear it?
The electricity for the mountain hut Manavella operates comes from hydropower, and if the mountain creeks dry up, his generator falls silent.
He even had to close his hut in February for that reason.
"It was my 17th winter up here," he says.
"I’d never before experienced such a thing."
Manavella doesn’t think he’ll have electricity for much longer this summer.
"If things keep going like this, we’ll soon have to shut down for good.”
In Osasco, just over an hour’s drive into the Po Valley, Professor Stefano Fenoglio heads up a research team of biologists, ecologists and environmental engineers from Alpstream examining the Po and its tributaries.
Last summer, the water was so warm that they discovered higher concentrations of the salmonella bacteria in the samples they took.
A zoologist from the University of Turin – looking more like a park ranger than a scientist in his baseball cap, jeans and hiking shoes – Fenoglio leads the way to a bridge across the Chisone, the Po tributary that flows through the valley beneath Manavella’s mountain hut.
Zoologist Stefano Fenoglio in the middle of the Chisone River: "If we had listened to the experts 20 or 30 years ago, we could have made better preparations." Foto: Gianmarco Maraviglia / DER SPIEGELThe rocky riverbed is around 90 meters across, Fenoglio estimates.
But the Chisone trickles past as little more than a two-meter-wide rivulet, totally out of character for the season.
In fact, the water doesn’t even reach the minimum line on a scale on a nearby bridge pillar.
Fenoglio used to come fishing here as a child with his grandfather, and he was so excited about the water here that he ultimately decided to become a river zoologist.
The current state of the river saddens him, but he doesn’t find it surprising.
"We have been observing this trend for the last 20 years,” he says.
"In Italy and Europe, we're acting like we are in an emergency situation.
But if we had listened to the experts 20 or 30 years ago, we could have made better preparations."
The professor isn’t particularly optimistic about what the future might hold.
Humanity won’t be able to bring the rains back.
Instead, he says, people have to adapt to the new reality – from the industrial farmers to the hobby anglers, fewer and fewer of whom can be found on the banks of the river.
Fenoglio takes a last look at the river, a quote at the ready – which he attributes to the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes – to describe its condition: "Hell is truth seen too late.”
A scale on a bridge for measuring the water level in the Chisone River. In this photo, it doesn't even reach the minimum. Foto: Gianmarco Maraviglia / DER SPIEGEL
The dried out bed of the Chisone River, a Po tributary. Foto: Gianmarco Maraviglia / DER SPIEGELIf the Po were home to the river gods we know from mythology, they would be able to tell a tale that began long before climate change – and has much to do with drastic interference in the waterway by humanity.
An untamed floodplain of swamps, meadows and forestland once ran alongside the river all the way to the Mediterranean coast.
Then, the Benedictine monks arrived.
Around the year 1000, they began building capacious abbeys, draining the wetlands and expanding agriculture in the region.
In 1482, Leonardo da Vinci wrote that he knew how to "conduct water from one place to another," and designed canals and locks.
The generations that followed continued the trend, producing one masterwork after the other to drain or flood the wetland areas.
The result was one of the largest and most abundant agrarian regions in Europe.
Parma ham, parmesan, polenta, Carnaroli rice, aceto balsamico, grain for ravioli, vineyards: There was always plenty of water for all of that.
But now?
Marco Ferraresi is standing on a dike south of Cremona, the riverbed at his feet.
Suddenly, he turns around, trudges up to his pump house and sighs.
The structure is 93 years old and houses cast iron pumps that still work just as well as ever.
If only there were enough water in the river!
"Our Mediterranean climate is changing into a tropical one," says Marco Ferraresi, pictured here. Foto: Gianmarco Maraviglia / DER SPIEGELLast year, Ferraresi had to switch off the pumps on June 13.
The Po was so low that the gray-haired engineer with rimless glasses could no longer draw water up into the irrigation canals.
"We haven’t seen a situation like this in nine decades," he says.
The Navarolo Consortium that he runs is responsible for providing water to an agricultural region of 30,000 hectares (75,000 acres).
But last summer, the situation only began improving in late August, far too late for farmers in the region.
A third of the fields dried out.
"We are used to being spoiled with the amount of water available to us," he says.
"We have the Alps and the glaciers, which feed large lakes like Lago Maggiore.
The water then flows into the Po and provides for our farmers."
In recent years, however, less and less water is finding its way into the Po lowlands.
"Our Mediterranean climate is changing into a tropical one," says Ferraresi.
Just a few weeks ago, he installed new pumps much lower down on the riverbanks.
When water levels are low, they will pump water up to the older pumps, which will then take over.
"We are used to being spoiled with the amount of water available to us." The Navarolo Consortium provides water to farmers in the region. Foto: Gianmarco Maraviglia / DER SPIEGELThe winters are too warm, there is too much frost in spring, the summers are too dry, autumn is hardly a season anymore – and precipitation that used to be spread out over several months now falls in just a few days.
The worst-case scenario has now become reality for farmers in northern Italy.
In the Lombardi region alone, farmers lost 450 million euros last year.
Often, they aren’t sure what they should fear more: the droughts that destroy their rice crops, or the sudden downpours that devastate their harvests and flood their fields.
When you talk with those who live on the banks of the river, stories of tragedy and drama are often told.
But there are also visionaries who believe that the fate of the Po hasn’t yet been sealed.
And in their search for solutions, they go back hundreds of years, to the time before the Benedictines transformed the area into farmland.
One of those visionaries is Donato Artoni.
On a recent sunny afternoon, he leads the way through forestland on the banks of the Po.
Twenty-six years ago, a prescient nearby community established a nature preserve here, the Parco San Colombano.
In a 730-hectare region stretching seven kilometers along the banks of the river – an area that used to be home to intensive farming – alder and poplar trees are now growing alongside wetlands and wild meadows.
The project involved the planting of more than 400,000 trees and bushes – which were then left to their own devices.
"We tried to reestablish a natural state like the one that existed many centuries ago," says Artoni, who monitors the project on behalf of WWF.
Areas where the river was straightened out were removed and tributaries reopened.
Now, the park acts as a sponge during floods, collecting the water before then slowly releasing it.
"That’s how the Nile worked back in ancient Egypt, benefiting a fertile farming region," the engineer says.
"That can work on the Po as well."
The damage that can be done by extended drought alternating with brief periods of heavy rainfall was on full display this spring in the Emilia Romagna region on the southern banks of the Po.
The barren ground was unable to absorb the massive amounts of rain, resulting in hundreds of communities being either flooded or hit by landslides.
Fifteen people died in the disaster, which also caused billions of euros in damage.
And instead of filling up the aquifers in the region, most of the floodwaters flowed into the sea.
"Now, I’ve started hearing people saying things like: Let's build new, higher dikes," says Artoni.
But the WWF has other ideas.
Together with partners, the environmental organization is developing a project for the restoration of the Po.
The idea is similar to the one that produced Parco Colombano a quarter century ago, but instead of seven kilometers of river, this one aims to restore 400 kilometers of the waterway.
The plan is to cost 360 million euros, with the funding to come from the NextGenerationEU recovery funds.
Artoni is convinced that the positive impact of his park can be magnified by the project.
It could protect important regions in northern Italy from flooding, create new water reserves and minimize the consequence of droughts.
The Abracadabra sails into the small fishing port of Scardovari all by itself – a low-slung fishing boat painted blue with white fenders hanging from its sides.
Onboard are 62-year-old Marco Bonandin and his son Mattia.
It is noon, and the two have been out since 4 a.m., they say, spending several hours under the scorching sun.
How has the day been so far?
"Good," says Marco Bonandin.
They were able to prepare two tons of mussels today, he says, adding that they are currently being kept in nets in the sea.
They will be picked up and sold next week.
Marco Bonandin, a friendly man with strong hands, knows that he is one of very few fishermen here who is having any success.
"Out of the 24 boats here in Scardovari, four, maximum five, are currently in operation," he says.
For many of his colleagues, it is no longer worth it to head out the banks that lie more than one-and-a-half nautical miles from the coast.
The most recent storms destroyed the "harvest," as he refers to the mussels.
Marco Bonandin in Scardovari is one of thousands of fishers in the Po Delta. Foto: Gianmarco Maraviglia / DER SPIEGEL
Unused buoys piled up at the fishing port in Scardovari. Many of the boats got off to a late start this season. Foto: Gianmarco Maraviglia / DER SPIEGELMattia and Marco Bonandin are two of thousands of fishermen who work in the Po Delta, harvesting the venus clams, oysters and mussels that are raised in the countless inlets.
The mollusks are considered a delicacy because of the exceptional quality produced by the mixture of freshwater from the Po and the saltwater from the sea.
The clams are particularly juicy, making them popular in Italy and beyond.
For now.
The anglers in the Po Delta are suffering from the consequences of drought just as their counterparts in agriculture are.
Less water from the Po translates to more saltwater in the delta region, which pushes several kilometers inland.
That means less phytoplankton, which nourishes the mussels, producing either smaller mollusks or weaker ones that are unable to survive winter storms.
In the fishing village of Scardovari, it’s hard to meet a fisher who doesn’t talk about a 30, 40 or even 50-percent reduction in the amount of mussels harvested.
A fisherman from Scardovari collecting Venus clams Foto: Gianmarco Maraviglia / DER SPIEGEL
The mussels of the Po Delta are a delicacy, the product of the region's mixture of freshwater and saltwater. That balance, however, is changing. Foto: Gianmarco Maraviglia / DER SPIEGELIn the Po Delta, a balance between humans and nature developed over the course of several centuries.
The Romans also raised fish here.
"Now, that balance seems to be breaking down,” says Sara Bianchi, a field guide in Parco del Delta del Po Veneto.
The 42-year-old is driving past riverside woods and small lakes, before coming to a stop in front of a poplar forest – or at least what is left of it.
Dead trees are protruding from the water.
The salt destroyed the forest within just one year, says Bianchi.
"The tourists don’t want to see something like that," she adds with a bitter laugh.
The further upriver the seawater comes, the greater is the damage caused.
At the monitoring station in Pontelagoscuro near Ferrara, more than 80 kilometers inland, the Po River’s salinity already reached critical levels last winter.
Locals are hectically trying to stop the trend.
For two months last summer, they spent 150,000 euros to rent a desalination facility from Spain.
Now, there are discussions about erecting a barrier to prevent the seawater from flowing upriver.
Those living along the delta were also extremely concerned about the effects of the flooding further upriver in Emilia Romagna.
But instead of a catastrophe, the heavy rainfall was a blessing for the delta, producing plenty of precipitation, but no flooding.
Meanwhile, up above in the mountains with Massimo Manavella at the source waters of the Po, the waterfall again began splashing and the meadows turned green again.
"We are much more optimistic than we were in spring," he says.
Since the middle of May, rain at the Alpino Selerries has come regularly.
But Manavella is still wary, knowing full well that drought can return at any time.
"Vediamo," he says, we’ll see.
The farmers are also in a better mood.
They have begun watering their rice fields down below in the Po floodplain.
This time, they think, they’ll be able to make it through the summer.
Optimistic despite recurring droughts: a farmer along the Po in Lombardi Foto: Gianmarco Maraviglia / DER SPIEGELHope and fear alternate quickly along the Po, like the clouds scudding across the sky above.
One thing, though, has definitely grown scarce: the gradual, reliable shift in seasons along with modest precipitation and moderate sun.
Down at the mouth of the river, mussel gatherers Mattia and Marco Bonandin lost half of their harvest last year.
"We are constantly worried that we might end up losing a full year of work," says Marco Bonandin, before jumping from the Abracadabra onto the quay in Scardovari.
It is said that "abracadabra" was once a phrase that could ward off fever.
The Bonandins are hoping that it will work against drought as well.
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