Farmers’ risk reduction strategies during drought events in the Po river basin: an assessment from surveys.

The Po River Basin is the largest Italian watershed, covering a surface of 71.000 km², and is the main agricultural area of the country (Figure 1). It was interested by several drought events in the past years with severe impacts on agriculture; between 2005 and 2007 agricultural losses caused by droughts were estimated to be around 1.850 M€.

Surveys have been proposed to local farmers to identify past droughts and heatwaves that have impacted their crops and to understand their water management strategies during those events. Past droughts have also been identified computing the SPEI. The comparison between the events identified through the SPEI and the ones reported in survey evidenced coherence in timing and lengths of the events. In particular three main events happened in 2003, 2017 and 2019.

Adaptation strategies to cope with droughts and heatwaves have been retrieved from the collected surveys. Farmers were asked to answer the following questions: if they applied irrigation during past droughts, which were the preferred irrigation strategies (i.e., irrigate at night, irrigate a reduced area to their full irrigation, irrigate the full area to a reduced irrigation, crop prioritization, etc) and which were their decisional criteria to establish when to start irrigation during a drought. Information on the availability of insurance coverages were collected, as well as on the grade of satisfaction of farmers about them.

Surveys highlighted how droughts occurring in different plant growing stages caused very different economic damages in terms of yield reduction and economic losses. The main source for water supply in the Po area are private wells, river and lakes. Farmers who did not apply irrigation reported a 55% yield reduction, while farmers who irrigated have lost only 20% of their yield. In addition, the farmers’ grade of satisfaction on insurance coverage was evaluated. Farmers who applied irrigation did not acquire insurance coverages, while farmers who haven’t used irrigation trusted more on insurance.

Future perspectives for the study are to assess the effectiveness of management strategies evaluated from surveys, though the use of simulation models, comparing them with other strategies to cope with water crisis.