In Frames | Europe’s bitter summer

The continent has been ravaged by water shortage and heat stress

First the forest fire and now the drought. A continent known for its bitter winter is now reeling under a harsh summer, a far remove from the temperate weather during the season when all of Europe used to be out under the sun in the previous years. The scorching heat has fuelled forest fires, dried up rivers and devastated crops, the 27-nation bloc’s earth observation programme warns in a report.

“Warmer and drier than usual conditions are likely to occur in the western Euro-Mediterranean region in the coming months till November 2022,” notably in Spain and Portugal, the EU’s Copernicus programme said in a report for the month of August. The report comes amid what experts say could be the continent’s worst drought in 500 years.

Almost half of the 27-nation EU is under drought warning, with conditions worsening in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, and Spain.

The report also noted rising drought hazards outside the EU, in Britain, Serbia, Ukraine and Moldova.

Copernicus said that a shortage of rain and a sequence of heatwaves since May has led to the dry conditions and lower river levels.

That in turn has hit the energy sector, depriving hydroelectric and other power plants of their prime source of energy and cooling liquid.

Water shortages and heat stress are also reducing European crop yields, with maize, soybean, and sunflower hardest hit.