Climate Change Risk and Mitigation for Italy

We are facing an exceptional and challenging problem in this era, which requires necessary, difficult and costly measures in order to reduce its impacts. This threat is climate change. Climate change will affect many countries and cause a lot of damage both monetary and non-monetary. Some of these impacts can be the changes in precipitation patterns, sea levels, and wind patterns. However, these impacts will affect different countries in different ways. One of the countries that will be affected from climate change is Italy. As stated in ‘The Climate Risk Index for Italy’ by The Royal Society Publishing, all of the countries around the world must know about and understand the risks and effects of climate change in order for them to know how to allocate their resources in order to reduce the risks of climate change. So, in this essay, I will be talking about how climate change will affect Italy generally, and how it will affect its tourism sector in more details. Furthermore, I will also create a mitigation plan in order to reduce the effects of climate change on Italy.

As we have seen in the past few years, the Earth’s temperature has been rising significantly, with 2016 being the hottest year on record with an increase in average temperature of 1.2ºC above pre-industrial levels (E360 Digest, 2016). This is a result of the increasing release of greenhouse gasses, which is thus one of the causing factors of climate change. In the past 10 years, Europe’s average annual temperature was between 1.6 and 1.7ºC above the pre-industrial levels, making it the warmest 10 years on record (EEA, 2018). Furthermore, the average annual temperature for Europe by the end of the century is going to be between 1.0ºC and 4.5ºC under RCP4.5 (representative concentration pathways) and 2.5 to 5.5ºC under RCP8.5, making it higher than the forecasted global average increase. Representative concentration pathways are “scenarios that include time series of emissions and concentrations of the full suite of GHS and aerosols….” (IPCC). According to the IPCC glossary, “RCP4.5 is an intermediate stabilization pathway in which radiative forcing is stabilized at approximately 4.5 W m-2 after 2100” (IPCC). Furthermore, RCP8.5 is a pathway in which radiative forcing reaches a greater level than 8.5 W m-2 by 2100 and keeps on rising (IPCC).

The average annual temperature is estimate to increase by 5ºC from 2000 until 2100. In 1990, the days of heatwaves that Italy had was about 10 days. However, in 2100 that number will rise to about 250 days in average. Moreover, with RCP2.6, then the number of days with heatwaves would be approximately 150 days. But if the global emissions decrease quickly, then there will only be almost 75 days of heatwaves.

The average number of days with high rainfall could increase to an average of four days from 1990 to 2100, which would thus increase the risk of floods. The average number of days with high rainfall in 1990 was between 10 to 25 days. Furthermore, with an RCP of 8.5, the days with extreme rainfall is going to increase to 10-30 days in 21000. However, with RCP2.6, the number of days with extreme rainfall is predicted to be between 10 to 28 days. Moreover, there are models that indicate increases of precipitation which are outside the range of historical variability, causing a greater risk to Italy and the people living in it. But if the global emissions of GHGs declines quickly, the risk would only be slightly reduced.

The number of dry days is estimated to increase from an average of 30 days to around 45 days, with large variabilities in each year. With RCP8.5, the number of dry days is between approximately 20 to 60 days in 2100. However, with RCP2.6, the number of dry days is between 20 to 40 days. Moreover, if we decrease our global emissions of GHGs rapidly, there would only be a small change in the number of dry days.

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There are many impacts of climate change that have been seen in Italy in the past few years, and can still be evident for the next half-century. One of the major impacts is coastal erosions. Italy’s coastline is almost 7500 km in length, and of that 7500 km, almost 3950 km are low coastlines or delta coastlines, which amounts to 53% (Climate Change Post, 2019). Averagely 3240 km of the Italian coastline is sand or gravel beaches, and the remaining almost 310 km are cliffs on small beaches. Furthermore, along most of the Italian coast, the tidal range is only about 0.3m. Nonetheless, a majority of the shores are exposed to extreme storms, with wave tights of 7.0m (Climate Change Post, 2019).

A big part of Italy’s coastal environment is suffering from urbanization, industry pressure and tourism. As a result of that and high erosion rates, a 10m/year retreat can be seen in several river areas, such as Obrone, Volturno and Po rivers. The narrow beaches that are in deep bays are not able to shift towards the land in order to adapt from erosion and become even narrower. Furthermore, dam constructions in rivers are decreasing the sediment supply in the coast, which is causing beach erosion. This is because both the agriculture, industry and gas sectors are extracting water in order to use them for plants, in the construction and other general industry matters and gas extraction. Moreover, Italy uses big jetties in order to protect their harbors from big waves, tides and currents, by acting as a barrier against erosion, this prevents some coastal segments from erosion, however, they increase erosion in other parts of the coast.

In Italy, 600 million tons of sand was removed from the Po River riverbed as a result of industrial dredging in 1950 until 1970 (Climate Change Post, 2019). Adding that to the trapping of sediment in the river due to the construction of dams, and the removal of groundwater, this resulted in a coastal retreat of hundreds of meters (Climate Change Post, 2019). However, there is an upside to all of this, as 48% of Italy’s lowlands in 2020 will become coastal zones as a result of sea level rise cause by tectonic movement and other factors. This would benefit Italy by creating more coastal zones that tourists could visit, thus increasing the percentage of GDP generated by tourism.

Climate change, and especially coastal erosion, is a relatively new and dangerous environmental challenge that we face, and it requires all of the countries of the world to take brave and necessary actions in order to reduce their impact. With this being said, although climate change cannot be stopped, but their risks and effects could be reduced. There is no adaptation or mitigating ways to decrease or even stop coastal erosion existent in the current period, however, I am going to create a mitigating solution that will reduce the effects of coastal erosion. First of all, Italy should increase the number of large jetties that they use to protect their coasts from erosion. However, they should place them in a way that erosion would take place on coasts that are inhabited, or doesn’t have a big monetary or non-monetary value to Italy, and wouldn’t affect inhabitants of that area. Furthermore, Italy should place breakwaters, which basically have the same function of large jetties, however they are more stable and have a longer lifespan than jetties. Finally, Italy should perform beach nourishments, which is when they increase the amount of sand on the beach for recreational and non-recreational purposes. The cost of all of this on Italy is going to be around 2-3 million euros for cities that are going to face great impacts from climate change and coastal erosion, however this wouldn’t have a great monetary impact on Italy, only if they act quickly and start reversing the effects that climate change, and specifically coastal erosion, has had on their coastlines. Nonetheless, if Italy postpones these necessary prevention methods, the cost of mitigating and reducing the effects of coastal erosion and climate change would become much greater.

In conclusion, climate change is a very dangerous and very real event that is already happening, and Italy is one of the countries that are going to be affected in a major way as a result of it. One of the effects that climate change is going to have on Italy is coastal erosion. Coastal erosion is going to affect most of Italy’s coastline and cities that are located on the coast in a negative way, however there are some methods that could be taken in order to minimize the effects of coastal erosion. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, some of the measures that would minimize the effects of coastal erosion are placing large jetties or breakwaters, in order to protect their coastlines from the current and big waves that would only expedite the effects of coastal erosion. Another thing that Italy could do is called beach nourishment, which is basically adding sand to the beach in order for it to keep its structural integrity, which would also have recreational purposes as well. Furthermore, if Italy acts fast and starts doing these measures, then the cost of reducing the effect of coastal erosion wouldn’t be as high as if they waited for a period of time before try to prevent these effects.

References

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