Heat wave in Italy: Lake Garda loses billions of liters of water

Italy – The record heat is causing problems for Italy’s largest lake. While temperatures in the popular holiday region climbed to up to 37 degrees, Lake Garda lost billions of liters of water in the past few days. The water level fell by 10 centimeters in the last week of June alone. There is still no end to the heat wave in sight.

“On a single, very hot one Summer day Around six to seven liters of water can evaporate per square meter of water surface. If you extrapolate this amount to the huge total area of ​​Lake Garda, gigantic amounts of water arise that simply escape into the atmosphere,” explains climatologist Dr. Karsten Brandt to BILD. A report by Italian According to daily newspaper L’Arena, Lake Garda is currently losing around 7.4 billion liters of water every day.

Why the lake is losing so much water

The reasons for the decline in water are diverse. When asked by BILD, Dominik Jung explains: “The cause is not only the direct evaporation over the approximately 370 square kilometer water surface, which is taking on enormous proportions at the current temperatures. The natural inflows are also currently significantly lower than usual.” According to the weather expert, this is because the Alpine snow reserves have already melted this spring and there has been a lack of precipitation in the catchment area for weeks.

The qualified meteorologist continued: “In addition, the outflow near the municipality of Peschiera del Garda is regulated by a weir Water released into the Mincio River, which is needed to irrigate agricultural land in the Po Valley. During hot periods, the need for irrigation increases significantly.” The reason for the falling water level is a combination of high evaporation, low inflow and increased water withdrawal.

What’s next with the weather?

At the beginning of this week there will be a short break – and the first thunderstorms are possible. From Wednesday onwards there could be some strong thunderstorms and some cooling down. But cancel for the weekend Weather experts again summery high temperatures of up to 36 degrees and the next Heat wave an.

That’s how much water there is in Lake Garda

Falling water levels on Lake Garda are not uncommon in the summer months. It was not until spring 2023 that the level reached dramatically low values. The island At this time, San Biagio was temporarily within walking distance. In September 2007 the level was at its historic all-time low. Nevertheless, Jung gives the all-clear: “The current level, at around 98 centimeters, is still well above these extreme values. Lake Garda has an average depth of around 135 meters and a total volume of around 50 billion cubic meters. That See It is not to be expected that it will dry out.”