Leading Italian meteorologists and climate exerts met here on Monday to examine the possible effects from the unusually warm and dry winter Italy is experiencing.
The aim of the meeting is to set up a task force to monitor the situation in order to intervene if the situation does not change.
Sources at Italy's civil protection department said that while there is no cause of alarm now, if it does not rain abundantly in coming months there will be major problems related to the lack of water.
Among those taking part in the meeting were Italy's civil protection chief Guido Bertolaso, the head of the civil protection department's office for forecasts and prevention, Bernardo De Bernardinis and the heads of the National Research Council's offices in Florence and Bologna, Giampiero Marracchi and Franco Prodi, respectively.
According to De Bernardinis, if there is no significant rainfall soon, rivers in Italy will hit record lows and not only will there be insufficient water to irrigate farm lands, but power plants will not have enough water for cooling and there will be energy blackouts.
Bertolaso has observed that this year appears to be a copy of 2003, which saw an extremely hot summer which claimed the lives of thousands of people in France.
Current forecasts are for rain around the 20th of the month, after which temperatures are expected to return to above seasonal averages.
