%0 Journal Article
%T Climate Aridity under Changing Conditions and Implications for the Agricultural Sector: Italy as a Case Study
%A Luca Salvati
%A Marco Zitti
%A Rosanna Di Bartolomei
%A Luigi Perini
%J Geography Journal
%D 2013
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2013/923173
%X A comprehensive diachronic analysis (1951¨C2010) of precipitation and temperature regimes has been carried out at the national and regional scale in Italy to investigate the impact of climate aridity on the agricultural system. Trends in climate aridity have been also analysed using UNEP aridity index which is the ratio between rainfall and potential evapotranspiration on a yearly basis. During the examined time period, and particularly in the most recent years, a gradual reduction in rainfall and growing temperatures have been observed which have further widened the gap between precipitation amounts and water demand in agriculture. 1. Introduction In recent years, Italy has been experiencing growing water scarcity that can be mainly related to climate variations and poor soil and water management [1¨C4]. Scholars, although still debating about the causes and possible remedies, recognize that a gradual warming process is occurring at wider scales also altering, at local level, the rainfall regime [5¨C7]. Bates et al. [8] indicates that observed warming over several decades has been linked to large-scale hydrological changes (i.e., increasing atmospheric water vapour content, changing precipitation patterns, reduced snow cover and widespread ice melting, changes in soil moisture and runoff). Mediterranean Basin is particularly exposed to the impacts of climate change. Particularly, the gradual heating along coasts in recent years, especially in summer, resulted in an increase of the average temperatures in coastal waters up to 3 degrees, producing phenomena of the mucilage and tropicalization of flora and fauna. In these regions, also, climate projections outline a decreased water availability due to less abundant, irregularly distributed, and intense rainfall throughout the year compared to the past [3, 9, 10]. At country scale, Italy, due to the particular geographical form, is an example of spatial heterogeneity in climate regimes shaping also climate variations at a local level. As a matter of fact, changes in temperature and precipitation regimes are not evenly distributed on the country, but differ from place to place depending on both the structural component (climate) of variability associated with the atmospheric system and on the random component (weather). One of the most important consequences of climate change for the Mediterranean environment is the increasing frequency of drought episodes and the growing impact of climate aridity on agroforest ecosystems [8, 11, 12]. Although hard to distinguish considering their effects, the conceptual
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/geography/2013/923173/