June 1, 2023
Europe faces crisis over water shortage amid drought. The past year was not an easy one for Europe, including due to the consequences of global warming. The bloc's countries experienced the worst drought in its history, facing various cataclysms that caused enormous damage. One of the problems that struck Europe due to extreme weather conditions was water shortages. Some regions had to place restrictions on its use in. Therefore, conflicts broke out between representatives of different sectors who wanted priority access. And experts say directly that one should not expect the situation to improve - the climate continues to change, and drought is becoming more frequent. Lack of the resource can not only turn into social unrest, but also plunge the region into a long crisis. The war for a sip of water...
The situation is escalating
Europe has suffered from severe drought for years. A study of satellite data shows that this problem had started in 2018. For several years now, countries have been experiencing water shortages - the level of groundwater, which is important for the water supply of industrial companies and settlements, has been consistently low since the onset of the drought. There is also less and less water on the surface: almost every river in the EU has become shallow to a certain extent.
The situation literally escalated in the summer of 2022, when Europe was hit by the worst drought in 500 years. The abnormal heat in the European countries was compared to the onset of the apocalypse: France was struggling with extensive forest fires, and in Switzerland the mountain pass, which had been covered by ice for two thousand years, thawed. The calculations show, the total damage that EU countries suffered from extreme weather was 20 billion dollars.
The rivers have become so shallow that there are "hungry rocks" on the surface with inscriptions that can only be seen during the most severe droughts, when water levels become extremely low. Among other things, the largest rivers on which the region's economy depends suffered: dry rivers slow down the delivery of goods, thereby slowing down trade and industry. The longest river in Italy, Po, has dried up for record, and the Tiber flowing through the central part of the country has also become shallow. Tributaries of the Loire, France's longest river, have dried up completely for the first time - in August it was reported that the river can now be crossed on foot. Europe's second-largest river, the Rhine, has also become shallow, the water level of which fell so much that the movement of ships along it was significantly complicated.
"A few years ago, I could not have imagined that we would have a shortage of water in Europe, especially in countries such as Germany and Austria. We actually started having problems with the water supply," said then the author of the satellite data studies on the groundwater level Torsten Mayer-Gürr.
The abnormal heat and lack of water affected several areas of the economy at once. First of all, it is agriculture - 64 percent of Europe suffered from drought, the soil on these lands dried up and plants were under threat. For example, the corn harvest collected in France in 2022 was the lowest since 1990. The similar situation is with the potatoes harvest. Other countries also have problems with agriculture: Italy lost 30 percent of its rice harvest because of drought, and Spain lost half of its olive harvest. As a result, food prices have risen in Europe, and not just for plant products. Due to poor grain yields, farmers had to feed cattle and sheep with winter-deposited feed. The increase in the cost of foddering added to the rise in energy prices, which in June led Europe to increase meat prices by 12 percent year-on-year - the biggest jump on record.
In addition, the drought has exacerbated the energy crisis in Europe. In France, which is the largest producer of nuclear energy among the EU countries, several power plants located along the Rhone and Garonne rivers had to reduce production due to high temperatures - water heated too much and became unsuitable for cooling the plants. In June 2022, nuclear energy generation in the country amounted to 20.1 terawatt-hours against 27.7 terawatt-hours in the same month of 2021. Hydropower has also suffered: Electricite de France reported that hydropower generation in the Rhone Valley, the Alps and the Côte d'Azur region, which generate more than 70 percent of France's hydropower capacity, fell by 60 percent from the beginning of the year through August.
A similar situation was observed in Italy. In June, the energy company Enel announced the closure of its plant on the south bank of the Po River for an indefinite time, most other hydroelectric plants had to reduce generation due to low water levels. According to the results for January-May 2022, hydroelectric power generation in the country decreased by 40 percent compared to the same period in 2021.
European countries suffered a total of $20 billion in damages from extreme weather in 2022. Germany's energy sector was hit by the shallowing of the Rhine. Coal-fired power generation was hampered by low water levels - boats could only ferry a quarter of their capacity. One of Germany's largest power suppliers, Uniper, warned of possible outages until early fall due to unstable supplies. Because of the drop in generation in Germany, as in France, electricity prices rose to record levels. Electricity futures for 2023 rose for the first time to 1,050 euros per megawatt-hour in Germany and to 1,075 euros per megawatt-hour in France.
The situation would have improved with the arrival of the winter season, but the regions that suffered most during the summer drought never received abundant rainfall. The winter of 2023 was the second warmest in European history. In January-February, the average temperature was 1.4 degrees Celsius higher than the average from 1991 to 2020. France had no rain for 30 consecutive days, and Italy saw a 64 percent reduction in snowfall by April compared to precipitation in the past 12 years.
Europe's water problems have only continued to gain momentum in the spring. For instnace, in Spain, the Panta de Sau water dam located north of Barcelona became so empty that local authorities decided to relocate fish from it to save it. In April, Catalonia's water reservoirs were only 27 percent full. At the same time, this year the country predicts the early onset of heat. For the difficult situation to be relieved, Europe needs precipitation, but spring rains can only soften the next warm summer that countries will face in 2023, but they can not eliminate the consequences of the long-term drought. "For Europe to get out of the vicious circle and stop starting every year with a significant water shortage, it will take almost a decade of very heavy precipitation," said Fred Hattermann, a hydrologist from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Under climate change, it is difficult to predict the extent of precipitation in the long term. However, even if rain and snow fall as often as it does now in Europe, global warming will lead to reduction of water resources throughout the European union. The higher the temperature, the more liquid evaporates. To compensate for this effect, abundant precipitation will again be required. The precipitation levels, in turn, are influenced by the position and intensity of the jet stream, which is a circumpolar belt of high-altitude westerly winds. With the climate change, the jet stream has weakened in Europe, which is causing various weather anomalies. And we are talking about all kinds of extreme deviations: both the long periods of drought in 2022 and the deadly floods that occurred in 2021.
Who will get the water
European governments have taken various measures to combat water scarcity. Italy, for instance, has issued a decree that aims to minimise the bureaucratic costs of designing and building water infrastructure, thereby providing the country with new reservoirs and catchment areas.. Spain published a new plan for water allocation until 2027, tailored to abnormal weather events. And France unveiled its new resource allocation strategy, which aims to reduce water consumption by 10 percent in all sectors of the economy by the end of the decade.
With the drought, water conservation has become particularly important for European countries, but the upkeep of the existing water infrastructure in many of them is currently inefficient. Because of leaking pipes, Europe loses, on average, a quarter of the water intended for use by the population. In Spain, losses account for 22 per cent, in Bulgaria 60 per cent, in Romania 41 per cent and in Italy 42.2 per cent. The problem has been recognised for a long time, but remains unsolved.
In the meantime, many countries have begun actively restricting citizens' access to the literally leaking resource. During the summer of 2022, due to drought and a drop in water supplies to 41.3 per cent in several localities in Spain, residents were banned from using water at night, washing private cars, filling swimming pools or watering gardens. Massive restrictions have also been imposed in France, with bans of one kind or another imposed in 93 of the country's 101 departments. Meanwhile, in 62 departments the situation was assessed as critical - in such cases, water was not allowed to be used for any non-priority tasks, including agriculture. Similar restrictions were also introduced in a number of Italian cities.
Against a background of scarcity and declining consumption by both the population and economic sectors, water allocation is becoming a political issue across Europe. In Germany, legal challenges over water have doubled in the last ten years, and in France, tensions between agriculturalists and eco-activists over the construction of reservoirs have led to violent clashes with the police. The reservoirs are needed so that farmers could pump groundwater in winter to irrigate the soil in the warmer months. Activists, on the other hand, see the construction of such reservoirs as unfair - in their view, the sector should reduce the consumption of water. In Spain's Andalusia region, the ruling center-right Popular Party and the far-right Vox party wanted to increase irrigation near wetlands protected by UNESCO, causing outrage from environmentalists and opposition parties. Maribel Mora of the extreme left-wing Podemos party threw a cup of sand at the chairman of the Andalusian prime minister's parliament, arguing that Doñana National Park would look like a desert if the bill was passed. "The drought has made us understand that water is our most precious resource. The construction of reservoirs for farmers is unfair as it takes water away from the majority in favour of a small group," said Marin Tondelier, head of the Green Party in France
Water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource for Europe, and the situation is unlikely to change any time soon. The coming summer is predicted to be no less hot than the previous one. The need for the liquid is only getting higher due to high temperatures and an increase in ignitions. In 2022, fires destroyed a record 700,000 hectares of forest in Europe. Spain suffered the most from wildfires, accounting for 37.7 per cent of the land burned. Romania came in second place, while Portugal came in third. Fighting fires consumes a lot of water and emits greenhouse gases from fires contribute to climate change. Last summer, emissions from forest fires in the European Union countries and Britain were the highest in over a decade, amounting to 6.4 megatons of carbon.
Ultimately, Europe finds itself in a vicious circle: global warming is progressing, and a resource is needed to cope with its effects and survive in the new conditions, which is only diminishing as temperatures rise. Water is needed equally by agriculture, energy companies, industry and citizens in their daily lives. The need to set priorities is making the societal environment more tense, and there are no signs for improvement - on the contrary, the drought is getting worse and longer every year.
Alexander Kachan
Source: https://lenta.ru/articles/2023/06/01/drought/
Translated by Muhiddin Ganiev