Southern Europe is bracing for a summer of intense drought, with some regions already suffering from water shortages and farmers expecting the worst harvests in decades. As climate change has made the region hotter and drier, consecutive years of drought have also depleted groundwater supplies.
In Spain and southern France, the soils have become drier and low water levels in rivers and reservoirs threaten hydroelectric power production this summer. With temperatures rising at this time of year, scientists warn that Europe is headed for another harsh summer, after last year’s hottest on record, fueling a drought that several European Union researchers called the worst of the year last 500 years.
So far this year, Spain is the country facing the most serious situation.
“The drought situation will worsen this summer,” Jorge Olcina, a professor of geographic analysis at the University of Alicante in Spain, told Reuters.
At this stage there is also little chance that rainfall will resolve the drought.
“At this time of year, the only thing we can have are punctual and local storms that will not solve the rainfall deficit,” Olcina said.
Spanish Agriculture Minister Luis Planas warned that “the situation resulting from this drought is of such magnitude that the consequences cannot be resolved with national funds alone,” according to a letter sent on April 24 to the European Commission.
Climate change worsens worst drought in decades
However, southern Europe is not the only region suffering from severe water scarcity. The Horn of Africa is also facing the worst drought in decades, while in Argentina a record drought has affected soybean and corn crops.
Drought will be more frequent and severe in the Mediterranean region – where the average temperature is currently 1.5ºC higher than it was 150 years ago -, according to scientists’ predictions about the impact of climate change in the region.
“In terms of the climate change signal, this fits perfectly with what we were expecting,” said Hayley Fowler, a professor of climate change impacts at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom.
Although the predictions are not recent, preparation for the consequences of climate change is lagging behind. Many agricultural regions have yet to adopt water-saving methods, such as precision irrigation, or switch to more water-resistant crops, such as sunflowers.
“Governments are late, companies are late. Some are not even thinking about changing their consumption model, they are just trying to find some miracle technologies that will bring water,” said Robert Vautard, a climatologist and director of the Pierre-Simon Laplace Institute. about France.
And Portugal also feels the early arrival of the drought, with around 90% of the country’s peninsula affected and a fifth of the territory with severe drought, almost five times more than that registered a year ago.
The Minister of Agriculture and Food, Maria do Céu Antunes, announced, on May 8, that she signed the dispatch that recognizes the situation of severe and extreme drought in 40% of the national territory, in the south of the country.
On May 10, the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and the Atmosphere (IPMA) announced that the situation of meteorological drought worsened in mainland Portugal in April, with 89% of this territory in drought, 34% of which in severe and extreme drought. .
Source: TSF
