Farmers sounded a fresh alarm on Thursday over the state of the Po, saying a prolonged drought had reduced parts of the northern river to their lowest levels in living memory.
Farmers' union Coldiretti said the Po, which is thecountry's longest and most used river, had dropped to the record level of 7.41 metres below sea level at Pontelagoscuro near Ferrara.
The 675 km-long Po, which cuts across northern Italy from west to east, feeds irrigation channels on the fertile Po plain and is also a key shipping route. The lack of water has damaged crops with fields running dry.
Coldiretti stressed that this year was one of the driest in the past three decades and that only the droughts of 1992 and 2003 had been worse.
It said it was a "calamity" for northern agriculture and that up to 50% of rice, corn, soya, vegetable and fruit crops had been lost with damages amounting to more than 500 million euros.
They asked for the release of emergency funds for farmers in the six northern regions of Piedmont, Lombardy, Friuli, Emilia Romagna, Veneto and Liguria plus the island of Sardinia.
The worst-hit regions were listed as Piedmont, Lombardy and Emilia Romagna with each region claiming losses amounting to more than 100 million euros. Agriculture Minister Paolo De Castro admitted the situation was "dramatic".
The minister, who has discussed the swift release of funds with Economy Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, said in an interview with the La Repubblica daily that a temporary solution would be to "open the taps of the mountain lakes" to send water into the valleys.
He said the northern mountain lakes and dams used to drive hydro-electric power stations were particularly full this year because of high rainfall over the winter. The minister said that if the water was used to feed the Po for a few days only, the risk of reducing energy output would be limited.
Earlier this week, the House Environmental Committee and a delegation of environmentalists toured the river to inspect the drought damage.
Committee chief Ermete Realacci later described the situation as "verging on a natural disaster". He said urgent action was required to save crops and livelihoods.
Realacci said the crisis had been aggravated by construction firms which continued to remove large quantities of sand from the river bed, often illegally. The opposition right-wing National Alliance (AN) also pointed an accusing finger at the country's leaky water distribution system, which it said allowed only 60% of water to make it to the tap.
AN lawmaker Cristina Muscardini said that many Italian reservoirs, aqueducts and water mains were in a state of disrepair.
She said the result was that 40% of all water supplies were lost through leakages.
"The situation is getting worse every year and becomes acute when there is a drought," she said.
