Following their successful participation in the ARSINOE open tender for innovation ANBI Emilia Romagna and Canale Emilia Romagnolo visited ARSINOE case study three to discuss the work carried out for the case study with stakeholders from the German region. Additionally, the irrigation experts offered insights into their own experiences with the effects of climate change on agriculture and water scarcity. Visits to projects on water protection and retention as well as agriculture in arid regions completed the visit.
Irrigation has a long tradition in Emilia Romagna and is considered key to climate adaptation in the Italian region and the innovators have developed strategies to make irrigation more climate resilient. Contrastingly, the innovation pathways formulated in the ARSINOE case study in the Main river basin stress the need for protecting water resources and soil as well as the necessity to retain more water in the region e. g. by unsealing soils. Considering the frequency of low flow conditions and the region’s dependence on water from southern Bavaria, stakeholders in the Main river basin worry that relying on irrigation may create expensive lock-in effects and increase the likelihood of conflicts about water resources in the future.
Against this backdrop the cooperation between ARSINOE and the innovators created additional information on future water demands for irrigation under different climate change scenarios and facilitated a fruitful exchange between the Italian experts and the stakeholders in the region. The debate focused on water needs, the environmental and financial cost of irrigation, the vulnerability of irrigation infrastructure to climate change impacts and the benefits of diverse adaptation strategies.