France convenes a crisis headquarters to control the situation, Spain prepares for a crop failure, dams are saved in the Netherlands, severe drought of the highest warning level is in some parts of Germany.
Each region is experiencing an unprecedented drought in its own way. In one place the forests are burning, and in another place, due to the drought, on the contrary, there is a threat of flooding in large areas. How is this possible?
France: nuclear power plants cannot be cooled
In southwestern France, fires have forced thousands of people to leave their homes and move to regions less affected by the heat and drought. The fire has already engulfed an area the size of 11,000 football fields, news agencies report. Due to the longest drought ever experienced in France, the French government has created a crisis headquarters that will monitor the drinking water situation in the country.
Forests are burning, crops are drying up, there are problems with energy supply. To protect animals and plants, some nuclear power plants no longer allow or are about to ban the use of river water that has been significantly heated by many heat days for cooling. In fact, after use, the water is again discharged into the reservoirs, while the temperature of the discharged water is higher than before the cooling process of the reactor, and this is harmful to the environment.
As a result, power plants produce less electricity than planned. At the same time, the authorities for the supervision of nuclear energy allowed the stations to exceed the temperature standards at a certain level. It has not yet reached a critical situation, but the nervousness level is rising.
EPA
Spain: farmers prepare for low harvest
After months of no rain and sweltering heat, the Vinuela reservoir in Malaga province is only 12 percent full and has turned into a huge puddle. “The situation is dramatic,” said farmers who were forced a few weeks ago to reduce the amount of water from the reservoir used to irrigate farmland. The consequences were catastrophic: around the reservoir there was the largest avocado garden in Europe. And this evergreen fruit plant is now dying without water.
The prospects for farmers in Spain this season are the most difficult: they must prepare for a crop failure – moral and financial. For example, olive oil producers expect to harvest only half of the usual crop, and this shortage will lead to an increase in the price of olive oil, which is already expensive in Europe.
Netherlands: Drought destroys dams that protect land from the sea
When they talk about problems arising from heat and drought, they often think of countries in the south: Spain, Portugal, France, Greece, Italy. However, more northern regions of Europe also suffer from record hot and dry summers.
Two thirds of the population of the Netherlands live in regions below sea level. Rotterdam and Amsterdam would have been flooded without dams and drainage systems to protect the land from water. Many hundreds of kilometers of dams are built from peat, which is like a sponge: if the material dries out from heat and drought, it becomes light and porous – holes and cracks can appear in the dams, which threatening their stability.
There have been no major dam breaks this summer, but Dutch authorities have developed a contingency plan in case of a severe drought and are closely monitoring the dams, with water officials and volunteers walking them looking for of cracks. Every damage is repaired, if the autumn rains are not enough to “heal all wounds”, the dams will also be filled with water.
Small dams, mostly built inland along canals and rivers, were watered from special boats. Last week, a state of emergency was declared in connection with the drought in the Netherlands. The main task now is to ensure the safety of important dams, in the second place is to provide the population with sufficient quantities of high quality drinking water.
In Amsterdam, the levees of the city are watered with fire hoses to keep them wet and therefore heavy enough.
Germany: Trees wither, shipping suffers
According to the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research, in some parts of Germany we are already talking about a severe drought of the highest warning level. According to Wetter.de, this summer was the driest of all since weather records began in the country in 1881. This greatly exceeded the summer of 2018, which was also very dry.
The weather forecast for the coming days in Germany is disappointing: no heavy rain is expected.
Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.