Characterisation of drought effect on groundwater of a coastal plain (Southern Italy)

Main droughts recently occurred in Calabria and regional sectors hardest hit have been
found carrying out an historical research. A regional newspaper has been selected as an
information source and articles concerning drought have been selected for the period
among 1980 to 2004. Data inferred from the articles have been organized in a database
in which both hit areas and damaged sectors have been highlighted.
During the study period, the northern sector of Calabria has been hit the hardest. On
this sector additional data have been found in order to better understand the effects of
drought on groundwater availability, particularly on the Sibari Plain, the main costal
plain of Calabria.
For this reason, the climatic trend and the occurrence/duration of exceptionally dry
periods have been investigated, based on long rainfall and temperature time series. In
addition, in order to characterize the effects of droughts periods on the availability of
groundwater, piezometric data, which had been collected from the thirties, have been
compared to 2002 and 2005 in-situ measurements.
At the end a geo-database has been implemented including too climatic and hydrogeological
data.
The analysis shows a remarkably negative rainfall trend and a widespread piezometric
lowering.