Having spent a couple of years in Portugal, on the Spanish border, I am well aware of the fact that Southern Europe is drying up, and this is a real problem.....
Fresh research from satellites tells us that Europe is quietly heading towards its own water crisis, and in some spots, it's already a big problem.
Although there is a clear split across Europe: the north is getting wetter, but a good chunk of the south and southeast is getting dryer, and looking at severe water shortages.
This is about more than just low rivers in the summer - this is to do with depleting groundwater over the long term.
That's a particular problem in Portugal where so many who live rurally rely on boreholes for their water.... i.e they are reliant on ground water!
This particular study follows how Earth's gravity changes to figure out where water is gathering up or drying out.... since water has mass, satellites can actually pick up on small changes. These shifts tell us if things like groundwater, lakes, soil moisture, and glaciers are growing or getting smaller as time goes on.
Water reserves have actually gone up in Scandinavia, some spots in the UK, and some other parts of northwest Europe.
Whereas places like Spain, France, Germany, and southeastern England, which are in southern and southeastern Europe have been losing water each and every year.
The fact that we see this pattern with groundwater is especially concerning is because it works like a buffer, a much longer term hedge against drought than reservoirs...
And when groundwater levels drop, it can seriously take any decades for them to come back up.
This new groundwater gap also fits with what we're seeing in climate predictions...
Northern Europe is getting wetter, and the south is getting hotter and drier. Rainfall is all over the place now, and summers just keep getting longer with really bad heatwaves.
There are likely problems ahead as farming, vacationing, and city expansion are set to push Southern Europe's water systems to their limits.Places like Spain and southern France are already dealing with water restrictions.... The European Environment Agency says that about 30% of people in Europe face water scarcity every single year.
And when there are water shortages, we have to figure out who gets what.... which is difficult when the problems are geographically dispersed...
Economic growth as usual isn't stimulated by limiting water usage, and people don't like it either, but then the economic and human costs of doing nothing are astronomical in the longer term!
The World Resources Institute says that water problems are really starting to hold back economic growth pretty much everywhere, and if the groundwater goes that could just hamper our ability to bounce back too...!
Unless we find Spice...?
