Planet Ark
From Tuscany to the tip of Sicily, Italy is suffering its worst drought in decades. It has wiped out crops, killed livestock and changed the lives of thousands.
Rainfall on Sicily is at its lowest level in more than 70 years and reservoirs could run dry if it doesn't rain by October.
Italians see much more than a natural disaster. They blame the current crisis on years of low investment and political negligence that have left the country with a notoriously leaky distribution network in which 40 percent of the water is lost before it even reaches the user.
As a result, on the one hand Italy has the highest water consumption per capita in Europe and the third highest in the world. On the otherhand according to a recent report, a third of Italians still don't have constant access to drinking water. In Palermo, housewives have taken to the street, staging noisy demonstrations while farmers block roads with tractors to demand action be taken.
And Palermo is just the tip of the iceberg. Much of the countryside and some cities have yet to be connected to aqueducts. Residents in the southern city of Agrigento, one of the hardest hit, go up to 20 days at a time without water. In Caltanissetta and Palma di Montechiaro the situation is no better.:
