Europe's drought is so severe that desertification now threatens the continent
Europe's summer drought is so extreme that desertification is a growing threat
A record summer drought across Europe has dried up rivers, devastated fish farms, and pushed parts of the continent toward desertification. In Hungary, nearly all land is under severe drought, with fish ponds drying out and 280 tons of fish lost. Romania, the Czech Republic, Bosnia, and Slovenia are also struggling, as countries and businesses scramble to adapt to a crisis scientists link to climate change.
“If they start to die, they will all die at once,” said Serbian fisherman Dusan Jovanovic, describing the peril of juvenile fish trapped in shrinking ponds along the Danube.
- MomsAVoxell
Just took a train ride from Vienna to Budapest for a few days, and couldn’t help but notice how very, very dry everything is .. as an Australian living in Europe for a few decades now, I’ve always been intrigued by just how green everything is, literally something growing in every single crack in the pavement, or endless rolling green fields of prosperity during spring - whereas, where I’m from its year-long spinifex and grass shrubs and wattles with the occasional bush flower bloom, barely hanging on out in the desert, mostly reds and blacks and greys, not much green - so the vibrancy of European fields and the abundant diversity of countryside flora have always been pleasant to my eyes ..
During this trip, I was kind of shocked that things felt a bit more Australian to my eyes .. the grasses are dry and barren, the beautiful city parks of both Budapest and Vienna dustier than usual, the Danube water level definitely noticeably lower than I remember ever seeing.
I’ve long been encouraging my European friends to not take the abundance of growth for granted, and now we see it in the environment, plain and clear: the worlds’ weather is changing.
A week of sweltering heat is predicted for us again in Vienna, and as we get started on September and then October so close, two thoughts are on my mind: use this opportunity to go for more dips in the Danube, and .. I wonder what the floods of late-autumn will bring, because .. inevitably .. this super dry summer means there will be he […]
- comrade1234
I have an ancient forest near where I live in Switzerland. In the core zone of the forest they do no maintenance whatsoever. The trees live, they get gigantic and very old. They die. At some point the top breaks off and then many years later the rest of the tree is so fungus-eaten it tips over too and rots on the ground.
Sunlight never reaches the ground because of the tall giant trees so there's no undergrowth. It's just dead leaves and mushrooms.
Something that was completely 100% noticeable was that during this drought of several months this forest was still incredibly healthy. You walk into the forest and the temperature drops several degrees Celsius and the ground still seems wet. I could tell that the groundwater level sunk maybe 4 feet by looking at some pits that normally have water. But still the ground didn't feel dried out.
I compared this to a forest where they do maintain the forest and harvest giant trees for wood. They don't clear it but just by cutting out these tall trees they let sunlight reach the ground and dry the forest out.
- markvdb
AMOC collapse [0] is Europe's potential big climate challenge. Nasty business. I wonder how to help prevent that from happening.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturnin...
- thi2
Reading some of these comments is really depressing. Since I can remember we talk about climate change and it's still not in peoples head.
When will it be real? When your home burns down due to a forest fire? When there is no water? When there is no food because everything is too dry? When a storm destroyed your home?
- pluc
But at least we can talk to search engines now
- freehorse
Just in case somebody else wanted a map to see exactly which areas in europe actually experience drought this summer
https://drought.emergency.copernicus.eu/tumbo/edo/map/?prodC...
- childofhedgehog
- kayo_20211030
I read this article, all of it. I'm still trying to square the circle of how a report about the tribulations of fish-farming on the Danube align with the broader concept of the "Desertification in Europe". To me, it seems like a bs, but credible, AI article about fish-farming challenges on the Danube which met some sloppy editor who simply stuck a more click-baity headline on it - one that was completely unrelated to the content.
- chasil
- gniv
The timing of this article is a bit unfortunate. It's been raining here (France) every day for the past week, sometimes heavily.