The International Programme for Technology and Research in Irrigation and Drainage (IPTRID) and the Italian National Committee of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ITAL-ICID) decided it would be worth extending a previous paper on Italy's available water resources to a detailed study on the partitioning of precipitation between evaporation, groundwater storage (saturated and unsaturated zone) and runoff with the aim of estimating the potentially renewable water resources of the country. The information is gained through a water balance model approach, using monthly climate data from the time series 1971-2000 estimated over 544 grid points of the whole of the Italian territory, made available by the CRA-Central Office for Crop Ecology (CRA-UCEA). The goal of this study was to evaluate the fraction of precipitation that does not return to the atmosphere through the evaporation process or remains in soil storage and that includes both surface and subsurface runoff including effective infiltration. The results obtained by using a GIS system may provide useful information on the evolution of the hydroclimatic conditions in Italy and a picture of the runoff amounts in terms of time and space. This information can be used for national planning purposes and for activating strategies to protect and conserve water resources, especially with regard to irrigation management. Copyright M. Zitti (consultant at CRA-UCEA) contributed to the build-up of the GIS database system and provided technical assistance in the data analysis.

Information on quantity and quality of fresh water and is availability is essential for sustainable development, economic growth and social stability.The International Programme for Technology and Research in Irrigation and Drainage (IPTRID) and the Italian National Committee of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) combined their efforts to publish a document on water resources in Italy with special attention devoted to the state of agricultural water management.The aim of this paper is to give a quantitative overview on available water resources in the Italian countryside, taking into account the existing differences between the many Italian regions.The report focuses on renewable water resources, defined as that part of water resources generated from precipitation and computed on the basis of the water balance.Thank to the collaborations between ICID-Italy and the Central Office of Agro-Ecology (UCEA), for the period 1971-2000, we were able to analyse the annual values of rainfall and reference evapotranspiration related to 544 points of a grid which covers the whole country.The grid comes from a geostatistical computation, the so-called kriging interpolation, based on data observed at weather stations belonging to the SIAN network.Data processing, supported by GIS software, is aimed at the computation of the effective infiltration that gives us a reliable assessment of the amount of renewable water resources.On the one hand the results confirm the global amount of water resources previously computed in other projects, but on the other they highlight the differences between the many parts of our country and they point out that a good assessment of water resources needs an awareness and a knowledge of the differences in reality which are typical features of our country. Le but de ce document est de fournir une vue d'ensemble quantitative sur les ressources en eau en Italie, en prenant compte des conditions locales des vingt régions italiennes.Le rapport s'intéresse particulièrement aux ressources hydriques renouvelables, définies comme la part des ressources générées par les précipitations et calculées sur la base du bilan hydrologique.Dans le cadre de la collaboration entre la CIID-Italie et l'Office Central de l'Ecologie Agraire, il a été possible d'analyser les données pluviométriques et l'évapotranspiration de référence relatives aux 544 points d'une grille qui couvre l'ensemble du territoire national, pendant la période analysée .Le quadrillage provient d'une élaboration géostatistique, connue sous le nom d'interpolation Kriging, qui est basée sur des données d'observation de stations météorologiques faisant partie du réseau SIAN.Le traitement de données, compatibles avec les logiciels de SIG, allait dans le sens d'un calcul basé sur des précipitations et des infiltrations effectives afin de produire une évaluation fiable du volume des ressources en eau renouvelables.Les données obtenues ont confirmé le montant global précédemment calculé par d'autres projets tout en soulig...

This paper reviews recent findings on the complex field of land degradation (LD) with focus on the Mediterranean Basin and Italy, in particular. The LD definition and assessment methods are examined in the light of the most important natural and human driving forces of the phenomenon, such as land use and climate changes. Various methodological issues are dealt with from multidisciplinary perspective with the aim of providing the ground for the development of integrated approaches: monitoring needs, assessment of costs, development of mitigation strategies, etc. Factors affecting land vulnerability to degradation are classified into bio-physical and socio-economic drivers with some examples of applications in Italy. The role of determinants such as agricultural development, population growth, and urban sprawl is recognised as important but still ambiguous and thus needs further studies. Based on these findings, policy responses aimed at mitigating LD and thus reducing desertification risk are discussed and methodological proposal are presented.

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