Short presentation of Po River Basin Authority
The Po River Basin Authority introduced by law 183/89, now 152/2006, is a collegiate body in
which state and regional authorities are represented. It is composed of:
- an “institutional committee”, a governmental “decision making” board composed of
regions’ presidents and four ministers (Public Works, Environment, Agriculture and
forestry, Cultural and Environmental Assets), and of the “Secretary General”;
- a “technical committee”, composed by scientific experts, and technicians from regional
institutions, is chaired by Secretary General and is the consulting body if the Institutional
committee;
- a “Secretary General”, who is the legal representative of the body and oversees and
coordinates the activities;
- a “technical-operational” secretariat, composed of technical and administrative personnel
employee directly in the unit to carry out operational functions.
Main activity and institutional framework
The main responsibility of the Po River Basin Authority is the drafting and implementation of the
Basin Plan, covering soil defence, hydrogeological and hydraulic risk management, water quality
and land utilization. The basin Plan lays down policies and measure for the basin as a whole,
considered with regard to physical/hydrological, not administrative, boundaries.
The Basin Plans encompasses the following plans required by European legislation:
- River Basin Managment Plan, from Water Framework Directive 2000/60, aimed primarily
at the restoration of a good ecological status of European water;
- Flood Risk Management Plans, from “Flood Directive” 2007/60 CE;
- Drought Management Plan, from European Strategy on Water Scarcity and Drought and the
“Blueprint to safeguard Europe’s water”.
The Climate change issue is cross-cutting all these policies, and needs an action of “mainstreaming”
(inclusion) in all these water related policies. It is very relevant the “science-policy interface” issue.
Territorial features.
The total area of the basin is 74.000 km2, of which only 4000 lying out of national border
(Switzerland) (in grey in the figure). This part of basin contributes to the Maggiore Lake waters.
Due to the small size of this area, the influence of CC transboundary issues are not a main issue in
the Po River Basin activities, even if we have bilateral agreements with Switzerland regarding the
rules to manage the Maggiore Lake water level during floods, which could be touched in the event
of a prevision of increased flood risk due to CC.
Anyway, due to historical-socio-economic asset of the district, and also to a lack of homogeneity in
the climate, we’re called to “transregional” problem solving in managing extreme events that will
be impacted from CC.
Just to give an example the figure shows the distribution of the “De Martonne” meteorological
aridity index, defined as the ratio between rainfall and temperature. On the left the situation during
non irrigation period, on the right the situation during the irrigation period. In the Po district the
season in which there’s a greater need of water corresponds to the season in which there is naturally
fewer availability. The South-Eastern part (Emilia Romagna region) of the basin is in fact quite
arid, while the Northern part (Lombardy and Piedmont regions) is quite rich in water resources.
In the northern part the irrigation efficiency is very low compared to the South-Eastern, but in both
these areas agriculture is one of the main sources of income.
Climate change will impact very negatively on the South-Eastern part, where a reduction of natural
water availability up to the 30% is expected in the next 50 years, accompanied by an increased
water need due to a regional mean-annual local warming up to 3 °C.
The main concern relates to drought and water scarcity risk: we experienced four drought/water
scarcity events in the last ten years (2003, 2006-2007, winter 2001-2012, summer 2012).
Thought, we developed a very advanced drought management system, which encompasses a
“governance board” and a “technological board”: in the first all the institutional and economic
stakeholders are called to decide on actual water management during water scarcity/drought events;
the second consists in a very advanced computer model system, called “DEWS-Po: Drought Early
Warning System for the Po River”, which can be profitably used both for crisis management and
planning purposes or even for “what-if scenarios” simulation.
The action started in 2005 with a “Memorandum of Understanding” which provided the following
actions:
- cooperation for the production of tools for the analysis and control of the water balance at
river district level;
- establishment of a “technical committee” to provide: oversight, guidance, liaison and
consultation among the signatories; technical specifications for conducting monitoring
activities, and forecasting of water crises; identification of specific indicators of water
resource status and possible trends; tools for collecting, processing and return the necessary
information to the purposes [of the agreement], and any tools and simulation models to
represent the distribution of the resource within the area of interest.
Basin wide monitoring system
Since then a basin-wide monitoring system and integrated climate modelling system has been
developed, and in the last three years it has been used intensively for water crises management
and planning purposes.
Here is the model interface. The architecture is based on the “Fews” system, provided by DeltaresDelft Hydraulic Company, which is now world wide distributed. The model integrates:
- meteorological models and forecasting, on the short, medium and long (three months) range;
- hydrological modelling;
- hydraulic balance modelling;
- tidal water modelling at the outlet;
- subsurface water modelling;
- reservoir modelling.
Beyond the technical merit, this model has proved to be a very effective instrument of governance:
also due to the huge amount of investment made both in terms of economic and human resources, it
requires collaboration between different institutional components for decision making, development
and maintenance, and forces to reach an agreement between different regions on the quantities
represented and on the results that it provides, or will provide. This is the starting point/knowledge
base for the agreement on water managing actions at district scale.
For the evaluation of climate change impact, having future scenarios available, it is possible to run
the model to assess the effect in terms of water availability/water use, and we’re working in this
direction.
Knowledge and strategy on climate change impacts and adaptation, needs
and approaches to integrate CC adaptation into development plans and the
water related sectors: the CCPO project.
The need is to include the study of CC in three planning processes that are activated right now
within Po River Basin Authority:
-
within the meaning of “Water Framework Directive”, 2000/60 CE, River Basin
Management Plans (Water quality). In the six-year updates of River Basin Management
Plan we’re being asked to take into account climate change effects in the second and third
planning cycle. The priorities are: monitoring and early detection of climate trends.
-
Water Balance Plan (Water quantity). With regard to the strategy for drought and water
scarcity. The objectives are: identification of historical trends, current status and future
trends, identification of measures to address the water crisis and measures for the "medium
term" to prevent water scarcity under climate change, development of Drought Managment
Plans.
-
Flood Risk Management Plan, within the meaning of “Flood Directive” 2007/60 EC and
following art. 4 of National Legislative Decree 49/2010. It is required the "assessment of the
potential adverse consequences of future floods for human health, land, property, the
environment, cultural heritage and economic and social activities taking into account factors
such as […] the long-term socio-economic and environmental scenarios [….],also
determined by the effects of climate change.
Due to the interconnections between these three planning processes, we have designed a project
to deal with the issue with an integrated approach.
In order to ensure consistency with the strategic EC framework, the results of the project CCPO
should allow to answer three questions for the assessment of climate policy, regarding
"inclusion, coherence and weight":
-
To what extent are considered in the Po River Authority’s Plans, the objectives of
climate policy? (inclusion)
-
How to analyze and recover the contradictions between the objectives of different
policies, minimizing the negative interference? (coherence)
-
Are there defined relative priorities between the climate policy’s objectives and other
policies’ objectives? (weight)
Lessons learned: uncertainty and stakeholders
Within the development of Water Balance Plan, a Public Participation Process has been activated to
share Plan’s purposes, Plan’s instruments and measures between stakeholders and policy makers.
The Public Participation Process consists of:
- public Forums, organised at the beginning and at crucial moments of the planning
process;
- thematic workshops and “Focus groups”, with the invitation of experts and main
stakeholders;
- activation of “platforms” for the collection of information, comments and observations
on what should be the contents of the plan, and what should be the problems faced and
possible ways to address them, and the prevailing social and economic interests of the
territory involved, or touched by, the plan.
A “Thematic Workshop” and a “Focus Group” were organised specifically to face CC issues, with
interesting outcomes.
The aims were:
- to present the actual situation and the possible impacts of future CC on water availability
and distribution, especially during “dry periods”;
- to present the different adaptation options which we collected through best practices
inventory and guidelines;
- to test the awareness and perception of CC within stakeholders (between theme:
agricultural operators, hydropower producers, citizen);
- to test the provision to adapt, in front of very uncertain future scenarios;
- to collect expertise and knowledge.
We collected the outcomes in a “return-report” which was shared again with participants,
containing a summary of discussion, and “key-messages”. Here are the reported the key-messages
which are the main goal of the process:
Key message 1:
in view of pressing of the European Community institutions (to develop adaptation strategies), an
acceptable response may be the activation of processes/projects well thought out, sensible and
sustainable in the light of available knowledge. Identification and upgrading of possible adaptation
options can be considered an adequate response to the instances.
Key Message 2:
Provide answers to perceived "climate variability" rather than to long-term and large scale climate change
scenarios, which are not considered reliable by stakeholders. Use "what if scenarios" based on impacts
assessments of the occurred events. It is required the reconstruction of the "perception of the CC" to
communicate effectively with the public.
Key message 3:
The general scientific level on the issue of climate change present in the district is adequate, as part
of research institutions and public administrations. There is a need to strengthen the relationship
between science and final-users to direct more specifically the production of scientific knowledge
and technical tools (eg: scenarios).
Key message 4:
There a demand to produce short-term climate projections attached to tools for assessing the "cost
of uncertainty".
Key message 5:
There’s a need to assess the impacts of extreme events due to CC over the last decade with
shared/standard methodologies. The most involved sector in the topic "CC and water" is agriculture.
There a need of appropriate and specific training activities to increase awareness of the economicsystems about the "climate risk" to which they are exposed.
Key message 6:
The adaptation costs are proportional to the uncertainty that economic systems must manage at the
time they have to choose the strategy (ie. the cultivations) for the incoming season/period. To
reduce adaptation’s costs it should be useful to reduce the uncertainty to a time-horizon of 2-4
years.
Key message 7:
Given uncertainty, “win-win” and “no-regret” solution and measures are well accepted, since they
bring benefit to the system anyway.