MONTE CIMONE, Italy : Monte Cimone, a popular ski resort in Italy's Apennine Mountains, invested 5 million euros in artificial snowmaking before the winter season in an attempt to stave off the impact of global warming. The money was largely wasted.
Legambiente calculates that the annual water consumption of Italy's Alpine pistes may soon be as much as a city of a million people, such as Naples.The power required to provide artificial snow to all Europe's Alpine resorts would equal the annual consumption of 130,000 families of four people, said Mario Tozzi, a geologist and conservationist.
Italy has around 220 ski resorts with at least five lifts, putting it third in the world behind the United States and France, according to the 2022 International Report on Snow and Mountain Tourism. It also receives the third highest number of foreign tourists behind Austria and France. Bolbeno's mayor Giorgio Marchetti said the snow it produces was"wonderful" and remained on the ground even in warm temperatures.In December authorities in the Swiss resort of Gstaad used helicopters to deposit snow onto a strategic but bare piste connecting the ski areas of Zweisimmen e Saanenmoser, which were themselves furnished with artificial snow from cannon.But the increasingly desperate attempts to preserve the ski industry are drawing protests from environmentalists.
"Even if artificial snow can reduce the financial losses from occasional instances of snow-deficient winters, it cannot protect against systemic long-term trends," Bank of Italy researchers said in a report in December.