LUX, France (AP) – A river once flowed through it. Now white dust and thousands of dead fish cover the wide ditch winding between rows of trees in the former River Tille in the village of Lux in France’s Burgundy region.
From dried up and cracked reservoirs in Spain to falling water levels on major arterial routes such as the Danube, Rhine and Po rivers, almost half of the European continent is being hit by an unprecedented drought. It damages farms, enforces water restrictions, causes wildfires, and threatens aquatic species.
In western, central and southern Europe there has been no significant precipitation for almost two months. In typically rainy Britain, the government officially declared a drought in southern and central England on Friday amid one of the hottest and driest summers on record.
And the dry spell in Europe is expected to be the worst in 500 years, experts say.
Climate change is exacerbating conditions, as hotter temperatures accelerate evaporation, thirsty plants absorb more moisture, and less snowfall in winter limits the supply of fresh water for summer irrigation. Europe is not alone in the crisis, drought conditions have also been reported in East Africa, the western United States and northern Mexico.
As he walked the 15-meter (50-foot) wide riverbed in Lux, Jean-Philippe Couasné, chief technician for the local Fisheries and Water Conservation Union, listed the fish species that had died in the Tille.
“It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “On average, about 8,000 liters (2,100 gallons) flow per second. … And now zero liters.”
In upstream areas, some trout and other freshwater species may seek shelter in tanks via fish ladders. But such systems are not available everywhere.
Without rain, “the river will continue to empty. And yes, all fish will die. … They’re trapped upstream and downstream, no water coming in, so the oxygen levels keep dropping as the (water) volume decreases,” Couasné said. “These are species that will gradually disappear.”
Jean-Pierre Sonvico, the association’s regional head, said diverting the fish to other rivers will not help as those waterways have also been affected by the drought.
“Yes, it’s dramatic, because what can we do? Nothing,” he said. “We are waiting and hoping for storms with rain, but storms are very local so we cannot count on them.”
The European Commission’s Joint Research Center warned this week that drought conditions are getting worse, potentially affecting 47% of the continent.
Andrea Toreti, a senior researcher at the European Drought Observatory, said a drought in 2018 was so extreme that there haven’t been similar events in the last 500 years, “but this year I think it’s really worse.”
For the next three months, “we still see a very high risk of drought over western and central Europe and the UK,” Toreti said.
The current situation is the result of long periods of drought caused by changes in the world weather system, said meteorologist Peter Hoffmann from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research near Berlin.
“It’s just that in the summer we feel it the most,” he said. “But actually, the drought builds up throughout the year.”
Climate change has reduced temperature differences between regions and weakened the forces driving the jet stream that normally brings wet Atlantic weather to Europe, he said.
A weaker or unstable jet stream can allow unusually hot air from North Africa to reach Europe, leading to prolonged hot spells. The opposite is also true when a polar vortex of cold air from the Arctic can cause freezing conditions far south of where it normally reaches.
Hoffmann said the observations over the past few years have all been on the high end of what existing climate models predicted.
The drought has caused some European countries to restrict water use and navigation on the Rhine and Danube is at risk.
The Rhine, Germany’s largest waterway, could reach critical lows in the coming days. The water level near the city of Kaub should drop to 35 centimeters by Tuesday, said Bastian Klein from the Federal Institute for Hydrology. Only small or specially designed vessels can navigate in such conditions, he said.
“Of course, industries that rely on inland waterways and transport on the Rhine are affected, as there is less transport capacity for raw materials or finished products,” said Klein.
The Serbian authorities have started dredging on the Danube to keep shipping going.
In neighboring Hungary, large parts of Lake Velence near Budapest have turned into dried up patches of mud, where small boats are stranded. Aeration and water circulation systems have been installed to protect wildlife, but water quality has deteriorated. A bathing ban was imposed on a beach at the weekend.
Parts of the Po, Italy’s longest river, are so low that barges and boats that sank decades ago resurface.
The drought has also hit England, which last month had its driest July since 1935, according to the Met Office weather agency. The lack of rain has depleted reservoirs, rivers and groundwater, leaving grasslands brown and bone dry.
Millions of people in the UK have already been banned from watering lawns and gardens under regional “hose bans” and another 15 million in London will soon face such a ban.
The drought is also affecting British farmers, who are running out of irrigation water and forced to use winter fodder for animals due to a lack of grass. The charity Rivers Trust said England’s chalk streams – which cause underground springs to gush through the spongy layer of rock – are drying up, threatening aquatic wildlife like kingfishers and trout.
Even countries like Spain and Portugal, used to long rain breaks, have seen big consequences. In Spain’s Andalusia region, some avocado farmers had to sacrifice hundreds of trees to keep others from wilting, as Lake Vinuela in Malaga province dropped to just 13% of its capacity.
Some European farmers use tap water for their livestock when ponds and streams dry up, using up to 100 liters (26 gallons) per day per cow.
In normally verdant Burgundy, where the Paris Seine rises, the grass has turned tawny and tractors kick up huge clouds of dust.
Baptiste Colson, who owns dairy cows and grows forage crops in the village of Moloy, said his animals are suffering from the drought as the quality and quantity of their milk decreases. The 31-year-old leader of the local young farmers’ union said he was forced to dip into his winter feed in August.
“That’s the biggest concern,” Colson said.
According to S&P Global Commodity Insights, EU corn production is expected to be 12.5 million tonnes lower than last year and sunflower production is expected to be 1.6 million tonnes lower.
Colson expects corn yields to drop by at least 30%, a major problem for feeding his cows.
“We know we need to buy feed… so the cows can keep producing milk,” he said. “From an economic point of view, the costs will be high.”
___
Contributors to this report are Dana Beltaji and Jill Lawless in London, Frank Jordans in Berlin, Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, Ciarán Giles in Madrid, Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia, and Bela Szandelszky in Budapest, Hungary.
___
Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment