{"id":360843,"date":"2026-01-08T11:42:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T10:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/news\/meno-piogge-piu-intense\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T10:27:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T09:27:02","slug":"less-rain-but-more-intense","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/en\/news\/less-rain-but-more-intense\/","title":{"rendered":"Less rain, but more intense: precipitation trends in Italy over the past 200 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It rains less in Italy, but when it does rain, the downpours are more intense. This is the picture outlined by a new study from the University of Pisa, authored by <strong>Marco Luppichini<\/strong> and <strong>Monica Bini<\/strong> of the<strong> Department of Geosciences and published in the international journal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S0169809525003680\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Atmospheric Research<\/a><\/strong>. For the first time, researchers analysed more than <strong>200 years of rainfall data drawn from historical archives and modern instrumental networks, reconstructing the evolution of precipitation across six major Italian climate zones. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The findings show that the <strong>largest reductions in rainfall occur mainly in the Po Valley and the Upper Adriatic, with three major historical minima around 1820, 1920 and 1980.<\/strong> The most extreme events, i.e.<strong> the peaks in rainfall intensity, emerge in the same areas, with maximum values around 1870, 1930 and 2003<\/strong>. A significant increase in precipitation intensity is also evident in the <strong>Ligurian\u2013Tyrrhenian regions<\/strong>, including Tuscany and Lazio, throughout the period from the nineteenth century to the present day.<\/p>\n<p>According to the study, the <strong>main driver of this change is global warming<\/strong>, which is altering the circulation of air masses over Europe and the Mediterranean. Atlantic disturbances reach Italy less frequently because large-scale atmospheric configurations \u2014 such as the Azores High \u2014 have strengthened and now block rainfall. At the same time, the Genoa Low cyclonic system, which normally brings much of the peninsula\u2019s rainfall, has weakened. Adding to this is an increasingly warm Mediterranean Sea, which generates more atmospheric moisture and energy: this does not increase total rainfall but makes <strong>individual precipitation events more intense and violent<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis combination \u2014 less rain but more intense rainfall \u2014 outlines complex future scenarios,\u201d explains Marco Luppichini. \u201cOn the one hand, <strong>the decline in average precipitation reduces groundwater recharge<\/strong>,<strong> exacerbates summer droughts and places water systems under strain<\/strong>, especially in densely populated and agricultural areas such as the Po Valley, the Tyrrhenian regions and the Apennine hinterland. On the other hand, <strong>the increase in the intensity of rainfall events amplifies the risk of landslides, flash floods and overloads of urban infrastructur<\/strong>e, with impacts already observable in many areas of north-western Italy and the central Tyrrhenian coast.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Looking in detail at the past two centuries, trends across the six major Italian climate zones are broadly similar, though with varying intensity. In the <strong>Alps<\/strong>, overall rainfall totals have remained largely stable, but intense events have become more frequent. The <strong>Po Valley<\/strong> and <strong>Upper Adriatic<\/strong> stand out as the areas where change is most pronounced, with sharp declines in total precipitation and a continuous rise in intensity. The<strong> central-southern Adriatic<\/strong> has seen a reduction in rainfall alongside strong variability in intensity, which has increased again over the past twenty years. The <strong>Ligurian and Tyrrhenian regions<\/strong> show a slight but steady decrease in total rainfall and a regular increase in intensity. In the <strong>central-southern Apennine<\/strong>s, rainfall has declined markedly since the twentieth century, while intensity has increased irregularly. <strong>Southern Italy and Sicily<\/strong> also confirm the national trend: after an initial increase, total rainfall stabilised and declined in the 1980s, while intensity has risen particularly in recent decades.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnderstanding these dynamics is essential for designing effective adaptation measures,\u201d concludes Monica Bini. \u201c<strong>As a result of global warming, the trends identified in historical series could intensify in the coming decades<\/strong>,<strong> making future scenarios even more unstable<\/strong>, with less rainfall and more extreme events.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A study published in Atmospheric Research analysed rainfall data from historical archives and modern monitoring networks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":358995,"menu_order":5,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"tag-notizie-persone":[2701,2698],"tags_news":[223,2305],"categorie":[159],"class_list":["post-360843","news","type-news","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-notizie-persone-marco-luppichini","tag-notizie-persone-monica-bini","tags_news-department-of-geosciences","tags_news-research-en","categorie-unipinews-en"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Less rain, but more intense: precipitation trends in Italy over the past 200 years ~ UNIPI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/en\/news\/less-rain-but-more-intense\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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