In recent years Sicily has become one of the Italian territories in which the effects of climate change are seen and impacted on the territory in a more clear way. Not because every single extreme event can be explained only with the climate that changes, but because drought, tide, floods and landslides are insistently striking an already fragile island, where the water infrastructures are old, many coasts are exposed and a significant part of the territory has long lived with the hydrogeological dissesto.
The most obvious case is drought and in 2024 the island experienced one of the most serious water crises of recent decades. In many municipalities razionamenti were introduced, the basins emptied and in the countryside the lack of water hit crops and farms. In some areas it was not only about the lack of rain: the higher temperatures increased evaporation and made water scarcity more serious, while the losses of the net transformed a climate crisis in an even infrastructural crisis. In Sicily, according to Istat data reported to 2022, over half of the water entered in the distribution networks was lost before arriving to users.
For many Sicilians the crisis has become a new routine. Cisterne, autobotti, dispensing shifts and restrictions on water use have become part of everyday life in different municipalities. Also Lake Pergusa, the only natural lake on the island, in 2024 almost dried up, becoming a symbol of drought.
Il Lago di Pergusa nel 2024 | via Ansa
In 2024 the government declared the state of emergency for drought, while the Region received a first tranche of funds for a wider water plan, designed to replace pipelines, intervene on the dams and make the system less vulnerable. Oppositions have accused the national government of not having an adequate strategy and to continue to discuss great works while in Sicily it rang water. Net of the political confrontation, the point is that without maintenance, planning and continuous investments, each extreme climate event arrives on structures that start already in disadvantage.
In January 2026 the problem was presented in the opposite form: too much water in a short time, along with the wind and the tides brought by the cyclone Harry. In Sicily the damage has been estimated in over a billion euros, between infrastructure, roads, ports, economic activities, agriculture and fishing. Along the Ionian coast, very high waves hit seafronts, plants, houses and railway traits. Here too, in addition to structural deficiencies, it becomes evident that it is a territory built and maintained to operate in a climate different from what it is facing now.
Alcuni dei danni subiti dal passaggio del ciclone Harry | via italianostra.org
And then Niscemi came. The Italian municipality of almost 25 thousand inhabitants, is part of the free municipal consortium of Caltanisetta (it is the equivalent of the Italian province, but in Sicily, which is one of the five Italian regions with special status), the land of Niscemi added, at the beginning of this year, another image to the same history. After days of bad weather, a part of the slope on which the village rises, leaving houses and streets on the edge of a new frana front. More than 1,500 people have been evacuated and the Civil Protection has talked about housing which is no longer usable, with the need to find stable housing solutions for some families. In cases such as this climate change does not erase local causes, such as the nature of land or the urban choices of the past. But it makes them more difficult to ignore, because more intense rains can transform fragility known in immediate emergencies.
Dettaglio della frana di Niscemi | via Shutterstock
There are those who try to answer this. The University of Catania, in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston and with the participation of Sapienza University in Rome, launched the International Summer School “Climate Resilient Solutions for Sicily”. The course takes place between Ortigia and Catania and involves 24 students from the United States and Italy. The goal is to work on the problems we have highlighted above: water management, coast protection, hydrogeological dissect, vulnerable infrastructure, agriculture exposed to drought and extreme phenomena.
The program includes 90 hours of training between lessons, workshops, workshops and field activities. Students will need to analyze real cases and propose design solutions to reduce risks and improve land adaptation. Of course, it is not from a summer school that you can think of solving problems accumulated for decades. But it indicates a direction: Sicily not as an example of Mediterranean fragility, as a laboratory in which to put together research, engineering, administration of the territory and political decisions. And then you will have to understand what ideas will remain in the final presentation and what will really enter the maintenance, in the urban plans and in the daily choices of those who govern the island.
L’articolo The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the field to save Sicily proviene da IlNewyorkese.
