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Antonio Cerillo: Europe suffered its worst drought in 500 years

author:Observer.com

【Text/Antonio Cerillo Translation/Observer Network Ye Chaonan Proofreader/Observer Network Liu Xiaoyun】

According to the latest report of the Global Drought Monitoring Station in the European Union's Copernicus Plan (also known as the Global Environment and Safety Monitoring Programme, which implements real-time dynamic monitoring of environment and safety), two-thirds of Europe is currently on varying degrees of alert due to drought, which may be the worst drought in Europe in nearly 500 years. Drought has affected the ecological and energy sectors, making water scarcity another trigger for the economic crisis.

Due to extreme land drought, 47% of the continent is currently on alert, while the other 17% of the continent is on alert due to the lack of optimistic vegetation growth.

Since the beginning of the year, the drought has had a serious impact on a large part of Europe, and since the beginning of August this year, the scope of the drought in Europe has been expanding and intensifying. The chronic lack of precipitation, coupled with the heat wave in Europe since May, has created the current drought situation in Europe.

The drought crisis is intensifying in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Romania, Hungary, northern Serbia, Ukraine, Moldova, Ireland and the United Kingdom. The rest of Europe has long been affected by drought and has been in a "stable state" of extreme drought. Drought conditions in the southern Czech Republic, northern Austria and central France showed a tendency to recover and ease.

The report notes that in November, the rare extreme heat and drought could recur in the west coast of the Mediterranean. For Spain, the report suggests that "certain parts of the Iberian Peninsula are likely to experience drier-than-usual conditions in the next three months." ”

The lack of precipitation first caused a change in the volume of the river. The reduction in water storage in reservoirs has affected the power generation of hydropower stations (20% reduction in power generation), while also adversely affecting the cooling systems of other power stations. In addition, the lack of water resources and the pressure of high temperatures have led to a sharp decline in crop yields.

Compared with the average yields in the last five years, the yields of corn, soybeans and sunflowers are expected to decline by 16%, 15% and 12%, respectively. "We observed that forest fires this season were significantly much higher than the average of previous years, and the drought also had a huge impact on crop production." There is no doubt that the effects of climate change are increasing year by year," says survey researcher Maria Gabriel.

In Italy, although recent precipitation has slightly improved the local drought situation and eased the inversion of seawater into the delta, the local government in the Po River Basin remains on regional alert due to its low water storage levels. In northern Italy, potential hydropower storage is gradually declining, almost half of the hydropower capacity observed in recent years.

In France, more than 100 cities have water supply problems, and water sources can only be provided to residents through water trucks. All 66 french provinces are on high alert due to the drought "crisis". Since the beginning of 2022, more than 60.000 hectares of land have been affected by fire, more than twice as much as in 2021 and about 4.6 times the average of the past decade (2012 to 2021). Nuclear power plant operator EDF (Électricité de France S.A.) has reduced the output of electricity at power plants in southwest France since early August due to the high temperature of the Garonne River.

In the Netherlands, the significant reduction in the volume of fluids in the Rhine Affected the shipping of commercial vessels, which in turn affected the transport of coal and oil. In Portugal, it is estimated that about 25 per cent of reservoirs experience severe low water levels that may not meet the water needs of local agricultural irrigation. As the water level on the Danube section of Serbia lowered, the wrecks of the wrecks of the World War II period were brought to light, which were found near Prahov and were still carrying ammunition.

Antonio Cerillo: Europe suffered its worst drought in 500 years

In August, in eastern Serbia, sunken Nazi German warships resurfaced as the water level of the Danube fell (Credit: The Times of Israel)

At the same time, Spain has arguably experienced the hottest summer on record, although the summer is not yet completely over, and July is already the hottest January since temperature was recorded.

With only a few days left until the end of August, we can say that the summer of 2022 is most likely the hottest summer since 1961," José Angel Núñez Mora and Ruben de Campo said in the official website of Spain's National Meteorological Service. If you use historical data to reconstruct temperatures over the years, "this summer has been the year with the highest average temperatures since at least 1916."

This does not mean that the summer of 1915 was hotter than this summer, he added, but that in terms of current data studies, we can be sure that at least in the last 106 years, there has never been a summer as hot as it is now. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that this summer will be characterized by high temperatures and droughts, with extreme climate combinations emerging, mutually reinforcing and progressively intensifying.

Due to human-induced climate change, the probability of a combination of extreme phenomena ( such as a combination of heat waves and droughts ) is likely to increase. In its sixth report, the First Working Group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that "high temperatures and droughts have become more frequent this century" and that this trend will continue to deepen as global warming (with high conviction).

The experts argue that if the study analyzes temperature changes between May 1 and August 15, "we can find that the period of 2022 is at least the hottest period since 1950." In addition, compared with 2003, 2015 and 2017, although the same period of time in these three years is also relatively hot, but this year's temperature is still higher than in these three years. ”

As a result, the reservoir, as the water supply for the Spanish people, has only 36.9% of the reservoir capacity, ranking second from the bottom in the water level record since 1995. The situation in the Guadalquivir, Guatemalan and Guadalete-Barbat river basins is even more alarming, with storage capacity of 22.5%, 24.9% and 25.7% of the storage capacity, respectively.

Meanwhile, the reservoirs of the Ter and Jobreccat rivers have only 39.7% of the reservoir capacity, which is where the people of Barcelona and the Girona region are supplied. The current water level is far from the same period last year (78%) and is also far from the 2008 government-set threshold for reservoir water level hazards (22%), although water restrictions to maintain low water levels were ultimately not implemented due to rainfall in May of that year.

These reservoirs have a storage capacity of 243 million cubic meters (with a total capacity of 612 million cubic meters), which is very close to the threshold of the water level of reservoirs in the Catalan region (which is currently in a state of early warning) issuing drought warnings. The thresholds established by the Catalan government are: the critical water level in August is 240 million cubic meters, and in September it is 210 million cubic meters.

In the worst case scenario, drought alerts (and the first water restrictions) could occur in early September, according to the Catalan water authorities.

The rains of recent days have brought some water to reservoirs and wells, and the reduction in irrigation needs has also saved water. At the same time, the seawater desalination plant has been basically fully put into use.

However, 150 cities (438,000 inhabitants) are currently on alert in the Catalan region, which has forced the region to implement water restrictions (time limits) and directly reduce water supplies.

Antonio Cerillo: Europe suffered its worst drought in 500 years

This summer, Spain suffered a severe heat drought (Credit: The Drinks Business)

Acciona, the world's leading renewable energy company, completely ceased operations at the riab (a county in the city of Noghella, in the province of Lleida) at the request of the Ebro Hydrological Association (the organization responsible for the overall management of reservoirs in Spain). The reservoir's storage level yesterday was 6.78 percent of its reservoir capacity, compared with more than 49 percent last year.

According to Acciona, the hydropower station began to shut down a few days ago and ended all operations completely yesterday (August 24). This is the first outage since the company began operating the hydropower plant at least in 2009.

Across Spain, hydroelectric power generation has been reduced by 43.4% between January and June (from 19.242 GWh to the current 10.898 GWh). This shrinkage in production can only be supplemented by other, more expensive sources of energy, mainly natural gas. "Hydroelectric power doesn't reduce electricity bills, but replacing hydropower with natural gas makes it more costly," explains energy consultant James Morren. Last year, hydropower provided Spain with 13 percent of its electricity, compared to just 7 percent this year.

"The current situation clearly shows that hydroelectric power can contain destabilizing factors. So if we want to stop relying on fossil fuels, renewables, wind power and photovoltaics are obviously more necessary," Molen adds.

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