Local politicians have appealed for the water to be dug up but experts say it’s not so simple.
ADVERTISEMENTA huge reserve of fresh water has been discovered hidden beneath Sicily’s Iblei Mountains.
The vast freshwater reserve is believed to contain around 17 billion cubic metres of water and is between 700 and 2,500 metres below the surface. It could hold the key to solving Sicily’s ongoing drought, one of the worst in Europe.
“It’s a very important study which could be fundamental to solving a problem that is putting Sicily in serious difficulty,” says Professor Lorenzo Lipparini, researcher at the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV). “According to our calculations, there could be an important reserve even below sea level.”
It was discovered by a team of researchers from the INGV and the Universities of Malta and Rome Tre who published their research in November. Though it’s believed that traces of the water were first discovered in the early 2000s when oil company Maurel et Prom was searching the area for natural gas.
Now a politician for Ragusa province, where some of the water is, has appealed to the regional government to make the most of this resource.
“Last November we did not yet know that during the winter we were preparing to face it would not rain enough to avoid the serious drought that we are now seeing and, in light of how things went, the discovery of the two universities could be decisive in addressing this crisis with concrete actions,” Nello Dipasquale’s question reads.
“I asked the regional government whether or not they intend to start a project that could connect this water reserve to the network and use it in the most critical moments, just like the one we are experiencing.”
Is the underground reservoir a solution to drought?
Though this is a significant discovery, the experts say it needs to be approached with caution as a potential solution to drought.
Accessing it would require assessing whether the drilling could make the area geologically unstable. Then drilling deep under the ground, which could take a month or longer according to experts.
“Technically you could do everything very quickly from a practical point of view, but I do not know what the timing of the bureaucracy could be. However, I have already been contacted by the regional civil protection of Sicily for a meeting,” says Lipparini. “They want to verify the feasibility of the project in the shortest possible time”.
If feasibility studies show that it is possible, the underground reserve could provide not only a valuable resource for drinking water but also for agriculture and livestock which are vital to the island’s economy.
Sicily’s farmers are currently at breaking point as harvests fail due to the dry weather and some are afraid they will have to sell off livestock if conditions don’t improve.
How was this huge underwater reservoir created?
The Iblei mountains are in the south-east of Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean. They are composed of gently undulating limestone rock intercepted by the low stone walls characteristic of Sicily. They straddle the provinces of Ragusa and Siracusa.
Using 3D models researchers reconstructed the geological history of the region and found the aquifer, which is twice the volume of Scotland’s Loch Ness. They say the water dates back to roughly six million years ago from a period known as the Messian salinity crisis.
This was when water levels in the Mediterranean Sea dropped dramatically allowing rainwater to penetrate the Earth’s crust. Rocks in the area likely acted like a sponge, retaining the rain and trapping it there when sea levels returned to normal.
Researchers also believe the water may be drinkable and it could help with Sicily’s ongoing drought emergency.
Sicily has had an almost rainless year and has seen record-high temperatures. It is particularly vulnerable to climate change and is facing desertification across 70 per cent of its territory.
A recent study, referenced by Dipasquale, found that by 2030 a third of Sicily could become a desert area on par with some areas of North Africa.
