Drought-to-flood year

A conditional statement under stated assumptions, never a prediction.

2 min read0 figures0 tables6 notesNR-COUNTRY-ITA-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
  3. 1Italy’s risk is coupled, not cumulative
  4. 2Key findings
  5. 3Systems and sectors at baseline
  6. 4Risks and capability
  7. 5Drought-to-flood year
    1. 5.1 Assumptions
    2. 5.2 The cascade, step by step
    3. 5.3 The scenario as a table of steps
  8. 6Lenses and readings
  9. 7The 2027 agenda
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

5.1Assumptions

Scenario SCN-ITA-DFL-01: what is assumed, and what is held constant.

Baseline
the 2026 reference state in this edition
Drivers
a dry winter with low Alpine snowpack; a hot summer with repeated heatwaves; intense autumn cloudbursts on dried, hardened soils
Analogues
the 2022 drought and heat424; the May 2023 Emilia-Romagna floods14
Interventions
none modelled, the specification describes the unmitigated case
Run state
narrative specification; quantified Foundry run scheduled for Q1 2027

5.2The cascade, step by step

  1. 1

    CLI → WAT

    low snowpack and heat cut the Po to record low flows

    202224

  2. 2

    WAT → FOO

    irrigation cuts and heat reduce harvests

    202223

  3. 3

    WAT → ENE

    hydro output falls; more gas generation

    20221

  4. 4

    CLI → HLT

    heat deaths among older people rise

    20224

  5. 5

    CLI → BIO

    wildfires in the South and the islands

    202120

  6. 6

    CLI → INF

    autumn cloudbursts on dried soils trigger floods and landslides

    202314

5.3The scenario as a table of steps

How the shock in scenario SCN-ITA-DFL-01 would travel through Italy’s coupled systems, step by step, under the assumptions the edition states.

StepWhat happensSource
01 Climate to waterLow snowpack and heat cut the Po to record low flows. Analogue or source: 2022 [24].Edition ITA, scenario SCN-ITA-DFL-01, step 1
02 Water to foodIrrigation cuts and heat reduce harvests. Analogue or source: 2022 [23].Edition ITA, scenario SCN-ITA-DFL-01, step 2
03 Water to energyHydro output falls; more gas generation. Analogue or source: 2022 [1].Edition ITA, scenario SCN-ITA-DFL-01, step 3
04 Climate to healthHeat deaths among older people rise. Analogue or source: 2022 [4].Edition ITA, scenario SCN-ITA-DFL-01, step 4
05 Climate to biodiversityWildfires in the South and the islands. Analogue or source: 2021 [20].Edition ITA, scenario SCN-ITA-DFL-01, step 5
06 Climate to infrastructureAutumn cloudbursts on dried soils trigger floods and landslides. Analogue or source: 2023 [14].Edition ITA, scenario SCN-ITA-DFL-01, step 6

A teaching model of a conditional scenario under the edition’s stated assumptions: not a forecast, not a prediction and not a warning. Sources: Italy 2026, scenario SCN-ITA-DFL-01 (2026); Italy 2026, references (NR-CIT-1) (2026).

Notes

Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references

  1. 4J. Ballester, M. Quijal-Zamorano, R. F. Méndez Turrubiates et al., “Heat-related mortality in Europe during the summer of 2022,” Nature Medicine, vol. 29, pp. 1857–1866, 2023.back
  2. 24Autorità di bacino distrettuale del fiume Po (ed.), Osservatorio permanente sugli utilizzi idrici: bollettini di severità idrica 2022. AdBPo, Parma, 2022.back
  3. 14Regione Emilia-Romagna (ed.), Alluvione di maggio 2023: rapporto sugli eventi e stima dei danni. Regione Emilia-Romagna, Bologna, 2023.back
  4. 23CREA (ed.), Annuario dell’agricoltura italiana 2022. CREA, Rome, 2023.back
  5. 1ISPRA (ed.), Italian Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990–2024: National Inventory Document 2026. ISPRA, Rome, April 2026.back
  6. 20J. San-Miguel-Ayanz et al. (eds.), Forest Fires in Europe, Middle East and North Africa 2021. Joint Research Centre, Ispra, 2022.back

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 5: Drought-to-flood year. In Italy Systems Risk and Resilience Report 2026: The State of Italy’s Interdependent Systems (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-COUNTRY-ITA-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Every citation form of the whole report, BibTeX and RIS included, is on the edition home. Cite this report

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Sector signature

The sectors behind Italy.

A reading aid: the sectors the findings run through and how strongly they depend on each other.

Select corners · hover lines10 / 15 relations

Context

Drought

Low river flows cut irrigation, cooling water and hydropower at once; food prices, nutrition and ecosystems follow.

W · E · I · F · H · B

Sectors
5 of 6
Relations
10 of 15
Coupling
0.68 share of total

Strongest relations in play

  • Food → Biodiversity · land conversion0.6
  • Water → Energy · cooling water and hydropower0.6
  • Water → Food · irrigation0.8
  • Water → Biodiversity · environmental flows0.6
Teaching values for a typical city-region, not measurements for any place. Coupling is the summed strength of the relations in play, as a share of all fifteen.
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