![]() ![]() ![]() This has sufficiently concerned the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni to take a number of measures, though these have yet to bear fruit. States of emergency were declared in five regions. Last year, over 100 cities in Italy alone were called upon to limit water consumption as feasibly as possible. The Italian Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) recently noted that the country’s aqueducts lost 42 percent of carried water supply in 2020. This is critical for a country which relies more than any other EU member state on those sources for their water supply. Supplies have fallen in lakes and reservoirs. In Italy, the mighty Po has declined in the worst drought in seven decades. The Sau reservoir, for instance, is at a mere 9 percent of capacity, necessitating the removal of fish to prevent them from perishing. In Barcelona, water supplies responsible for nourishing six million people, are at risk. Last November, Catalan authorities imposed a number of water restrictions, limiting the refilling of pools, limiting showers to five minutes, prohibiting the washing of cars and cutting down the watering of gardens to two times a week. In Spain, the country’s weather service, Aemet, has concluded that the situation is nothing less than extraordinary. As Marine Tondelier, national secretary of Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV, Greens), declared on March 7, “Once and for all, let’s say it, simply and firmly: at this rate, there will soon not be enough water in our rivers to cool the nuclear power plants!” The French nuclear industry has prominently struggled with inadequate supply, even in the face of a parliamentary bill to accelerate the construction of new reactors. Aquatic species are losing their habitats and ecological disruption is becoming the norm.įrom the human perspective, the water crisis has also encouraged an energy shortage. The dry riverbed and bodies of stagnant water are becoming more common features of the European landscape. The researchers from TU Graz also note the bleak picture from prolonged drought, one all too familiar to those inhabiting dry swathes of land on such continents as Africa and Australia. The consequences for such deficits in water, the authors note, are severe to “agricultural productivity, forest management, and industrial production, with the latter cut back by disrupted transport on inland waterways due to extremely low water levels.” Levels since have barely risen. Much the same pattern was repeated in 2019: below-average precipitation, beating heatwaves in June and July. In July and August that year, vicious heatwaves aided in inducing drought conditions. “In the summer months of 2018, Central and Northern Europe experienced exceptionally dry conditions with parts of Central Europe receiving less than 50% of the long-time mean precipitation”. In a piece published in Geophysical Research Letters, Eva Boergens and her fellow authors picked up on sharp water shortages in Central Europe during the summer months of 20. Even through winter, there has been no relief. Groundwater levels have been, according to the institute, low, despite the occasional dramatic flooding event. Since 2018, according to satellite data analysed by researchers from the Institute of Geodesy at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), the continent has been enduring increasingly dire drought conditions. To this can be added the near catastrophic conditions that exist in other parts of the globe, where ready and secure access to water supplies is more aspiration than reality. Share on WhatsApp Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Telegram Share on Reddit Share on EmailĮurope is joining a number of other regions on the planet in suffering a prolonged water crisis and it is one that shows little sign of abating. ![]()
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