Due to the drought, the level of Lake Garda (Lago di Garda or Benaco in Italian) in northern Italy has become the lowest in 15 years.

“We are now 30 centimeters above hydrographic zero, while the average in recent years has been 80-100 centimeters above that during this period,” Gianluca Ginepro, director of Garda Unico, the company that promotes Lake Garda, told AFP, as quoted by AFP. .

“This situation needs to be kept under control, but at the moment there are no problems in terms of using the lake for activities such as sailing or windsurfing,” he said, assuring that tourism in the country is developing very well. area.

The drought has also forced some inter-lake shipping routes to switch from hydrofoils to catamarans, Ginepro adds.

“We’ve lost a bit of the ability to supply water for agriculture” downstream of the lake via the Mincio River, Ginepro admits.

Facing the worst drought in 70 years, the Italian government declared a state of emergency in several regions of central and northern Italy in early July.

With an area of ​​about 367 square kilometers, the level of Lake Garda has not yet reached its level in the summer of 2007, when it was recorded at 9.9 cm above sea level, according to the Italian body responsible for monitoring the lakes. .

The drought, which covered a large part of Europe, caused, in addition to significant damage to agriculture, numerous fires.

Fires have destroyed 662,776 hectares of forest in the European Union since January 1, according to figures updated on Sunday by the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), which has been keeping comparable statistics since 2006 thanks to satellite images from Europe’s Copernicus programme.