This will heighten fears of crop and energy supply shortages on a continent already hit by a significant reduction in gas flows from Russia. “The combination of severe drought and heat has created unprecedented pressure on water levels across the EU. We are currently witnessing a forest fire season. . . above average and a significant impact on crop production,” said Mariya Gabriel, EU Commissioner for Research and Innovation. “Severe to extreme” drought conditions are evident in Italy, south-east and north-west France, eastern Germany, eastern Europe, southern Norway and large parts of the Balkans, according to a report published on Tuesday by the EU’s Joint Survey . Centre. He said about 47 percent of the EU was under drought warning conditions and 17 percent on drought “alert”, which meant vegetation and crops had been affected. The report also warned of “severe impacts” on the energy sector, particularly hydroelectric plants that cannot operate, and the cooling systems of other power plants. This summer has been one of the driest on record in Europe, which scientists said is warming faster than the global average. Wildfires have spread rapidly across the continent, burning more than 4.6 times the average land area of the past 19 years of wildfires, while Alpine glaciers have melted at a record pace. The average annual temperature on the European land mass over the past decade has been about 2C higher than in the pre-industrial period, according to a report by the European Environment Agency published in June, compared to about 1C on average globally. The UK has also been battered by a prolonged period of hot and dry weather, which pushed England into an official state of drought in August. The government announced on Tuesday that 10 out of 14 regions have entered a drought state, adding that recent rainfall was not enough to replenish rivers, groundwater and reservoirs to “normal levels”. Such extreme water shortages and heat stress on plants have lowered forecasts for this summer’s harvest in Europe, with crops such as maize, sunflower and soybeans the most affected. Yield forecasts for these crops are between 12 and 16 percent below the five-year average, the JRC data showed. It has also exacerbated energy supply problems across the continent. Hydroelectric dams have run dry in countries such as Portugal and Norway, prompting the EU’s second-biggest natural gas supplier after Russia to warn it may have to cut power exports if the situation does not improve. Energy production from nuclear power plants has also had to be reduced due to a lack of water to cool the reactors.
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The JRC report, which is based on data from the European Drought Monitor, warned that warmer and drier conditions could last until autumn in the western Mediterranean. A return to more normal weather “for most of Europe” could not “be enough to fully recover the deficit [of water] accumulated in more than half a year,” he said. The scientists added that “much drier than normal weather conditions” were forecast to last in western Spain, eastern Portugal and along the Croatian coast. The impact of the wildfires was particularly severe in Portugal, where the JRC said the fire risk was “high to extreme in most of the country”. Brussels announced on Tuesday that it had deployed two firefighting aircraft for the first time to help Portugal fight forest fires in the north of the country. Additional reporting by Camilla Hodgson in London
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