According to climatologists, the drought that has swept Europe may become the worst in the last 500 years.

Drought in Europe continues – the flow of rivers continues to decrease.

According to climatologists, the drought that has swept Europe may become the worst in the last 500 years.

This is reported by the Department of Hydrology and Hydroecology of the KNU. Taras Shevchenko.

A report from the EU Earth Observation Program (Copernicus Europe's eyes on earth) notes that almost half of the 27 EU countries are at risk of drought, with conditions deteriorating in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands. Portugal, Romania and Spain. The report also notes an increase in drought risk outside the EU, the UK, Serbia, Ukraine and Moldova. Copernicus notes that the lack of rain and a series of heat waves since May have led to dry conditions and lower water levels in the rivers.

More than 1 tonne of freight per inhabitant of the region is transported annually along the canals and rivers of Europe, and such cargo transportation brings about $80 billion a year to local economies.

The Rhine River, the central link of European inland waterways, is already on This week may actually become impassable for ships. Accordingly, this will block the river's supply of fuel and coal, which is very important for German thermal power plants.

The water level also dropped in the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta in the Netherlands. Therefore, sea water has entered the country's lock and canal system, threatening drinking and irrigation water reservoirs.

Due to the heat, France is forced to limit the operation of several nuclear plants, as the temperature of the water in the Rhone and Garonne rivers became too high, to use it to cool nuclear reactors. This further exacerbated the energy crisis in the country.

The water level in the Po River in Italy has fallen to such a low level that it cannot be used for rice fields and shellfish farming. Due to drought and lack of water, authorities have warned that a third of Italian agricultural production is at risk.

Danube, due to shallowing, requires work to deepen the bottom. Dozens of ships in Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia have to wait until the route becomes available.

The impact of the drought is also felt in Ukraine. In particular, in July of this year, the inflow to the Dniester reservoir was only 19% of the monthly norm.

According to Ukrhydroenergo, this is the lowest average value of water inflow in July for the entire period of operation of the Dniester reservoir, starting from 1985 . Low water content has led to the fact that in July electricity generation at the Dniester HPP decreased by 43% compared to the same period last year. At the same time, Ukrhydroenergo provides environmental discharges into the downstream. This led to wear and tear of the Dniester reservoir by almost 1.5 m during July.

Recall that a record drought in Italy helped to discover dangerous remnants of the Second World War.

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