Italy’s largest lake wilts in Europe’s heatwave

It is the largest lake in Italy, mythologised by the Romans and the Germans, and a magnet for tourists and modern-day celebrities.

But Italy’s worst drought in decades has reduced water levels at Lake Garda to nearly their lowest ever level.

Heatwave and drought conditions have been widespread across Europe this summer, but Italy has suffered more than most. Its biggest River, the Po, has dried up across vast stretches.

Lake Garda is also taking a major hit. The drought has exposed swathes of previously underwater rocks, and has warmed water temperatures to the extent that they are approaching the average in the Caribbean Sea.

Lake Garda is located in northern Italy, which has not seen significant rainfall in months. The parched condition of the Po has already caused billions of euros in losses to farmers who normally rely on it to irrigate fields and paddies.

To compensate, the authorities allowed more water from Lake Garda to flow out to local rivers. But that is now having its own consequences.

In late July, the authorities had to address the issue of water levels in the lake. The amount being pushed into the Po was reduced in order to protect the lake and the financially important tourism tied to it, ahead of the most important month of the holiday season.

Tourists flocking to the popular northern region this weekend have found a vastly different landscape from the one they knew before. An expansive stretch of bleached rock extends far from the normal shoreline, ringing the southern Sirmione peninsula with a yellow halo between the green hues of the water and the trees on the shore.

“We came last year, we liked it, and we came back this year,” says Beatrice Masi. “We found the landscape had changed a lot. We were a bit shocked when we arrived, because we had our usual walk around, and the water wasn’t there.” Garda’s mayor, Davide Bedinelli, has said that he has to protect both farmers and the tourist industry.

“Drought is a fact that we have to deal with this year, but the tourist season is in no danger,” Bedinelli wrote in a 20 July Facebook post. He confirmed that the lake was losing 2cm of water a day. The lake’s temperature, meanwhile, has been above average for August, according to seatemperature.org.

On Friday, Lake Garda’s water was nearly 26C (78F), several degrees warmer than the average August temperature of 22C (71.6F), and nearing the average in the Caribbean Sea, which is around 27C (80F).

For Mario Treccani, who owns a lakefront concession providing beach chairs and umbrellas, the lake’s expanded shoreline means fewer people are renting his chairs, since there are now plenty of rocks on which to sunbathe.

“The lake is usually a metre, or more than a metre, higher,” he says. Pointing to a small wall that usually stops the water from reaching the beach chairs, he recalls that on windy days, sometimes waves from the lake would splash up onto the tourists.

Not any more.

“It is a bit sad. Before, you could hear the noise of the waves breaking up here. Now, you don’t hear anything.”