Europe chokes on unprecedented drought amid gas problems

More than half of Europe is now under threat of what will be the worst drought in 500 years, and Germany’s most important river is drying up, reports Daily Mail.

The latest data from the European Drought Observatory show that a total of 64 percent of land in the EU and the UK is currently at risk of drought.

According to the latest map of the Combined Drought Indicator, compiled from July data, 47% of the European territory is in an “alarm” state, which means a lack of moisture in the soil, and 17% is in an emergency state. where vegetation is stressed.

The map shows that the countries most affected by drought include the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Poland and Romania. And the Rhine is now so low that it could become impassable to barges this week, threatening supplies of vital oil and coal supplies.

Wildfires are also spreading across France again, hitting an area already hard hit by temperatures soaring to record levels last month.

The Rhine, which carries 80 percent of all waterborne cargo in Germany from its industrial centers to Dutch ports, is now so low that it could become impassable for barges later this week, threatening vital oil and coal supplies that are needed country if Russia closes the gas valve.

Now the water level in the Rhine is already lower than at the same time in 2018, when Europe experienced the last major drought. That same year, the river closed to freighters for 132 days, nearly triggering a recession. The cost of transporting goods on the river has already increased five times this year.

Andrea Toreti, senior fellow at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, says: “We haven’t fully analyzed this event, but from experience I think it may be even more extreme than it was in 2018. And 2018 was so extreme that, looking back at the data for the last 500 years, no other similar events have been recorded.”

EU climate monitoring agency Copernicus said on Monday: “Europe experienced dry conditions for most of July, with rainfall across much of the continent and, in particular, soil moisture well below average. The month began with a drier-than-usual June in the UK, Ireland, Italy and most of the Iberian Peninsula, in addition to a large region stretching from the northern Balkans through Eastern Europe and northwest Russia.

European authorities said they had “repeatedly warned of increased fire danger due to lack of rain” ahead of the July heat wave.

Since Tuesday, a fire in the Gironde – near Bordeaux – has burned 15,000 acres of pine forest and forced the evacuation of nearly 6,000 people. The local authorities of the Gironde wine department announced the mobilization of 500 firefighters. The prefecture has warned that the fire is spreading towards the A63 motorway connecting Bordeaux with Spain. Highway speed limits have been lowered in case smoke begins to restrict visibility, and a full highway closure could be ordered if the fire intensifies and continues to spread.

Fires raged on Tuesday in other parts of France as well. One of them broke out in the southern departments of Loser and Aveyron, where about 600 hectares have already burned down. According to local authorities, another fire broke out in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France, where 1,600 acres have burned and 500 acres are at risk.

According to CNN, there are worries about EU food production amid the heatwave and conflict in Ukraine, which is already pushing up the cost of goods across the EU. The European Commission’s Joint Research Center said in a recent report that it believes the hot weather will see production of corn, sunflower and soybean cereals drop by 8-9%, well below the five-year average.

Freya Vamborg, a senior scientist at Copernicus agency, says that “drought conditions in previous months, combined with high temperatures and low rainfall experienced in many areas in July, could adversely affect agricultural production and other industries such as river transport and energy production. “.

Weeks of dry weather have turned several of Europe’s main waterways from full-flowing rivers to rivulets, creating headaches for German factories and power plants that rely on water to deliver essential materials. Many large ships will find it difficult to safely navigate the Rhine between Koblenz and Mainz.

“The situation is quite dramatic, but not yet as dramatic as in 2018,” says Christian Lorenz, a spokesman for the German logistics company HGK. Due to water shortages, ships carrying salt down the river from Heilbronn to Cologne, which typically carry 2,200 metric tons of cargo, can currently only carry about 600 tons, he said.

“Of course, we hope that shipping will not be stopped, but in 2018 we saw that when the water level became very low, gas stations suddenly ran out of fuel because the ships could not pass,” recalled Lorenz.

Authorities are taking steps to divert more cargo to and prioritize the rail network if necessary, and HGK and other shipping companies are preparing for a “new normal” in which low water levels like those experienced this year will become more frequent as global warming makes drought worse. “Climate change cannot be denied and the industry is adapting to it,” said Christian Lorenz.

The bottlenecks resulting from shallow rivers have become another drag on Germany, Europe’s largest economy, which has been struggling with high inflation, supply chain disruptions and soaring gas prices since the conflict in Ukraine erupted in February.

Droughts affect not only Germany, but also Spain, the south of France, Portugal and most of Italy, suffering from water shortages. The European Drought Observatory said 15 percent of EU countries are on high alert as crops suffer from “serious water stress”. As many as 95 French regions have introduced a ban on the use of water from hoses, while 62 are at a “crisis level” that allows water to be used only for basic needs. More than 100 French cities do not have piped drinking water and are supplied with special supplies.

A prolonged drought and extreme heat have made July the hottest month in Spain since at least 1961. Spanish reservoirs averaged just 40 percent full in early August, well below a ten-year average of about 60 percent, official figures show.