Po River Basin (Italy)
The Po is the longest river in Italy, with a length of 652 km from its source in Cottian Alps (at Pian
del Re) to its mouth in the Adriatic Sea, in the north of Ravenna. It is also the largest river with an
average discharge of 1540 m3/s. The river basin area extends on about 71.000 km2 and includes a
large part of the Padan Plain, and is fed by a main reticulum of more than major 140 water courses
(more than 20km of length) and an almost ten time larger secondary reticulum of natural and
artificial water bodies, irrigation and reclamation channels.
In the Alpine area, 174 water reservoirs
manage 2.803 billion m3 a year, of which 143 artificial reservoirs for hydropower production,
controlling 1.513 billion m3 and another 1.290 billion m3 controlled by natural lakes; furthermore the
basin comprises circa 600k m2 of glacier areas.
Climate conditions in the Po area are changing in a sensitive way: from 1960 to present an
increase of the annual mean temperature of about 2 °C has been observed, with a relevant
increase of the linear trend which leads to forecasting an increase of the annual mean temperature
close to 3-4 °C at the end of the century.
The decrease of precipitation is not so evident,
nevertheless, an increase in the intensity of the single rainfall events, but an overall decrease in
the total number of the rainfall events can be observed, resulting in a decrease of the annual mean
precipitation of about 20% observed during the last thirty years. The decrease is more evident
during spring and summer seasons (when a maximum decrease of about 50% can be noticed)
whereas the inter-annual variability increases. Furthermore, due to the strong negative correlation
between the decreasing snow coverage and the increasing air temperature, a constant retreatment
of the alpine glaciers is expected.
The Po Valley covers the economically most important area of Italy, and a population of more than
16 million which produces 40% of the national Gross Domestic Product. Water uses within the Po
valley come from the electricity sector (about 890 hydro-electric power plants power producing
48% of the national hydroelectric production, and 400 thermo-electric plants (31% of the national
thermo-electric production), from inland navigation (although heavily reduced in the recent years
due to low-flow conditions) and for an irrigation based agriculture.
The river is subject to high flow variation, frequent floods and periods of low flows. Total water abstractions account to more than 20.5 billion m3 per annum, most part of which (16.5 billion m3) is used in agriculture/irrigation, 2.5 billion m3 for drinking water and 1.5 billion m3 for industrial uses.
Abstractions account for 14.5 billion m3 for surface waters and for 6 billion m3 for groundwater. The
extreme low precipitations in 2006/2007 left a water deficit of about 380 m3 of water, which
exceeded the 2003 and 2006 drought years.
Within Po river basin, Water2Adapt will focus on urban area of Parma and rural area of Emilia-
Romagna region. Parma is a major city with more than 180.000 inhabitants, situated in the central
part of the river basin and hosting important industrial activities of the agro-food sector.
Besides the Po River Basin Authority, the stakeholders include municipal administration and urban
water utility (APM) of Parma, and regional administration of Emilia-Romagna.
