Europe’s Droughts: People Going Dry | Knowledge & Environment | DW

With high water consumption, low rainfall, water sources are drying up. Amplified by man-made climate change, more people in Europe are feeling the effects of more intense heat waves, longer droughts and excessive water consumption. Southern Europe in particular is currently suffering from heat waves and months of drought.

In order to ensure the supply of water to the population, politicians call on people to limit their use of water to what is absolutely necessary. But, in some places this is not enough.

“One thing is dryness. Another is how much water we’re getting out of the system,” explains the doctor. Nihad Sal, a water expert at the European Union’s environmental agency, the European Environment Agency. After all, private water consumption in Europe is just nine percent. So far 60 percent is used in agriculture.

Italy

The situation in northern Italy is now very dramatic. The country is facing the worst drought in the last 70 years. Due to the tense water situation, many areas have now declared a water emergency. More than a hundred cities are called to reduce water consumption as much as possible. The Italian government has therefore declared a state of emergency for five regions by the end of the year. It wants to provide 36 million euros in the short term to tackle the water crisis.

Due to months of drought and no snow even in winter, the Dora Baltea and Po rivers are now carrying one-eighth as much water as usual. They feed one of the most important agricultural regions in all of Europe. 30 percent of cultivated areas are currently threatened by drought.

See also  Russian soldiers find infected cattle - and suffer from anthrax

Sesia in Piedmont is just a stream. Crops are threatened across the region

The Agricultural Irrigation Regulatory Agency (Bontesa) in the northwestern region around the Sesia River has already ordered that fruit trees and pulses can no longer be irrigated. The remaining water is intended to save the economically important rice crop.

Over the weekend, the mayor of Verona announced a ban on watering gardens and playgrounds, washing cars and yards, and filling pools and swimming pools in order to ensure the supply of drinking water. With immediate effect till the end of August. Vegetable gardens can be watered only at night. Water is also provided in paisa, and potable water is to be used only for “domestic use and personal hygiene”. Failure to do so will result in a fine of up to 500 euros. Meanwhile, in Milan, all fountains used only for decoration have been turned off.

Here beautiful fountains like those of Verona or Milan have already been extinguished

The mayor of the small town of Castenazo wants to take an unconventional approach to the problem. With immediate effect, he has banned hairdressers and hairdressers from double-washing their clients’ hair. This will save thousands of liters of water per day. There are ten hairdressers in a small town of 16,000 people.

Portugal

Portugal is already bracing for 2022, the driest year in winter. Due to lack of rain, the water level in the reservoirs has dropped drastically since last January. So the government ordered in February to reduce the use of hydropower plants to two hours per week. The objective is to ensure that drinking water supply to the country’s ten million people is ensured for at least another two years.

What was clear in winter is very clear today: by the end of May, 97 percent of the entire country was already suffering from severe drought. The burning of coal, oil and gas has already created droughts that otherwise occur only once every ten years, almost twice as often in the Mediterranean region. Some regions are experiencing the worst drought in millennia.

In central Portugal, boats aren’t the only ones stranded

The Irrigation Association for Agriculture in the cities of Silves, Lagoa and Portimão in the south of the country has already implemented an emergency plan to supply some 1,800 farms and halve irrigation for some crops.

In Portuguese media, Prime Minister for Environment and Climate Duarte Cordeiro stressed last week that despite current products, the country will have to live with restrictions and higher costs in the future. Duarte urged businesses to invest in action. Nihal Zal from EEA sees plenty of opportunities to increase or save efficiency. “From a water source, for example a lake, on its way to an industrial area, an average of 25 percent of fresh water is lost.” Making water infrastructure more efficient “has huge savings potential,” says Sal

Spain

It is also very dry in Spain. Two-thirds of the entire extremely arid region is threatened by desertification. So fertile soil becomes increasingly sandy.

Cities in the north of the country were forced to take drastic measures in early February as the winter was the second driest since 1961, according to Spain’s meteorological service.

The village of Acerido was filled in for a reservoir 30 years ago and is now reappearing.

See also  Fighter Debate: Erdogan Threatens America

In the city of Camples in Catalonia, water is sometimes only running for a few hours a day, according to city orders. For emergency needs, buckets filled daily by the community were deposited at five locations in the village.

In the small town of Vacarisses in the province of Barcelona, ​​wells and underground water pipes are also dry. At present, people have water only from 6 am to 10 am and from 8 pm to midnight. Fixing and controlling water leaks has reduced the daily water consumption of a community of 7,000 by up to 25 percent.

Spain is the third largest producer of agricultural products in the European Union. At least 70 percent of the total fresh water requirement is used for agriculture. “Demand is constantly increasing. Instead of proposing measures to save water, we pretend that Spain has the same amount of water as Norway or Finland, when in fact we are more at the level of North Africa,” Juan Baria from Greenpeace Spain told DW.

In the southern Spanish province of Almeria, the so-called plastic ocean scene: nearly 30,000 greenhouses and polytunnels cover 350 square kilometers.

Although efficient drip irrigation is already in use in agricultural areas, at least a fifth is irrigated using unsustainable methods.

Zal from the EEA warns that to better manage water crises, you need to move away from crisis management, observable now through water rationing, and think long-term. This will mean greater capacity to manage water, forward-looking risk management and preparedness for the next crisis. And that’s “adapting to climate change, at the individual level, at the local level, at the government level. At all levels.”