TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Europe is in drought. As the burning of fossil fuels pushes up temperatures that are making summers hotter and drier, the continent's soils, lakes and rivers are struggling to recover. Southern and Western European countries are particularly affected. But they're not the only ones.
"We've seen drought risks expanding northward during the last decade", says Gisela Elsner, Climate and Sustainability Policy Officer at the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation, who has followed EU water management efforts for years.
"Central and Western Europe, but also southeastern European countries, are increasingly vulnerable due to climate change."
For the month of August this year, satellite data shows areas as far north as Denmark and Sweden experiencing extremely dry conditions more often seen in regions such as the Sub-Saharan Sahel.
The impact is palpable. Some of the continent's longest rivers like the Rhine or the Danube have reached historic lows, disrupting inland shipping routes. Farmers from Germany to Ukraine are reporting below-average harvests, and areas from the United Kingdom to Switzerland to Germany have announced restrictions on household water use.
To make matters worse, this year's El Nino event — a climate cycle that weakens trade winds and warms tropical Pacific surface temperatures — is set to be one of the strongest on record. Experts predict that 2027 will be even hotter and drier as a result.
Europe will have to adapt to this reality, says Gisela Elsner. "It is not yet a matter of not having water in our taps anymore. But we need to prioritize and use our water resources efficiently."
So, how can countries across the continent set about doing this? DW analyzed water usage in European nations and reviewed the evidence to find out which measures have the most impact.
Which European countries use the most water?
Private households in Europe account for a relatively small share of water usage. Depending on the country, they consume a daily per capita average of between 50 and 300 liters, which equates to less than 20 percent of all use.
Two thirds of water withdrawn continent-wide is for agriculture — mostly for irrigation — as well as electricity cooling for nuclear and fossil fuel power plants.
In already drought-prone countries like Greece, Turkey and Spain, agriculture accounts for most of the near 2000 liters of water withdrawn per person each day.
Electricity cooling is the biggest factor in Eastern European countries like Bulgaria or Hungary, but also in the Netherlands or Estonia, which use between 1000 and 2000 liters per capita daily in total.
Where Europe can save the most water
"There is no single solution that is sufficient to solve this challenge," says Gisela Elsner. "It has to be a combined bundle of measures."
And they exist. A recent report published by the European Environmental Agency (EEA) found that EU countries could save between 10 and 40 percent of water annually by implementing targeted strategies.
For states in Western and Eastern Europe, shifting to clean energy would make a big difference. While nuclear, and planet-heating oil, gas and coal need huge amounts of water for cooling, wind and solar do not.
Electricity cooling: renewables to the rescue
So besides becoming the cheapest forms of energy, the renewables that are increasingly replacing fossil fuels are also helping countries to save water. Over the past two decades, Europe has reduced its water usage by around a quarter — mostly because of more efficient electrical cooling.
Even with nuclear plants still requiring water in countries like France, Spain or Sweden, the potential savings are massive. The EEA estimates that EU countries could make significant further savings of between 45 and 95 percent — equal to hundreds of liters per person each day — by expanding renewables and improving cooling systems.
Better irrigation can help in agriculture
In Southern Europe, agriculture is the big-ticket item. The EEA report recommends, for instance, replacing open water transport channels with closed pipes to avoid evaporation during heatwaves, switching from surface irrigation to sprinklers or drip irrigation, and opting for less water-intensive crops whereever possible.
Public water supply: leaky pipes lose lots of water
In EU countries, around one in four liters of drinkable water from the public supply is lost to leaky pipes and evaporation before it ever reaches its destination — according to estimates by the European association of water providers EurEau.
In Romania and Italy, the share is more than 40 percent. According to the EEA report, avoiding these losses would account for most of the potential savings in the EU's public water supply.
Once drinking water reaches households and businesses, individual behavior has an impact as well. The EEA report lists extensive recommendations for savings in daily life, from low-flow toilets and efficient washing machines and dishwashers, to harvesting rainwater. Yet even if every citizen in Europe did all they could, it would only reduce the daily per person household water use by between 10 and 40 percent.
Citizens could also contribute through more responsible consumer decisions, such as considering the water footprint of the products they buy or support, says Alexander Psomas, water resources expert at the Greek consultancy Brilliant Solutions, who co-authored the EEA report.
"Citizens can also push our governments to be more accountable on their energy policy and the impact it has on water."
What Europe can learn
Drought and heat waves are not just a European problem. Many parts of the world are even more severely affected by the climate crisis. And data from the United Nations shows regions in Northern Africa, the Middle East and Asia have been dealing with much higher levels of water stress for a long time.
This also means that Europe can collaborate with, and learn from, the rest of the world on how to adapt to water scarcity. "The UN World Food Program and the FAO are all working on similar questions in the Global South," said Giriraj Armanath, Research Group Leader at the International Water Management Institute.
Gisela Elsner recounts, for instance, chip manufacturers in the German state of Saxony recently looking to expertise from Singapore on how to reuse wastewater to cool their factories.
"We can definitely learn from those countries which already have all the knowledge and the technologies that can be used in our context as well," she said.
Public and politics are paying more attention to water use
Both Gisela Elsner and Alexander Psomas say they have noticed both politics and the public becoming more aware in recent years.
"The water scarcity and droughts topic did not have a relevant EU working group until 2022", Psomas told DW. "Today, it's one of the working groups with the highest participation. There is a growing interest and concern on this issue."
What he would like to see more of, he says, is public debates about water strategies, especially during election periods.
"If a country runs low on water, it affects everyone," he says. "I would like to see politicians discuss what kind of solutions they're offering for making their countries more water resilient in 10, 20 years from now."
Read: UN Warns of Higher Disaster Risk as Global Temperatures Exceed 1.5C
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