Soil aridity under climate change and implications for agriculture in Italy

Abstract

A comprehensive temporal analysis of precipitation and temperature regimes from 1951 to 2010 has been carried out at a national and regional scale in Italy to investigate the impact of climate aridity on the agricultural system. Trends in climate aridity have also been analyzed using the UNEP aridity index, which is the ratio of rainfall to reference evapotranspiration on a yearly basis. During the time period examined, and particularly in the most recent years, a gradual reduction in rainfall and increase in temperature have been observed, which further widened the gap between precipitation and agricultural water demand