From 2006-2010, on average 15% of the EU territory and 17% of the EU population have been affected by meteorological droughts each year (15). In the 1990s and 2000s the drought hotspots were the Mediterranean area and the Carpathian Region (16).

Recent droughts in Central Europe are the droughts of 2003, 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2022. The summer droughts of 2003 and 2019 had a larger spatial extent throughout Central Europe than the 2015 and 2018 events. While the 2018 event was centered in southwest Germany and neighboring countries, the drought in 2019 affected mostly parts of Poland, eastern Germany, and the Czech Republic until July before spreading westward in August. Overall, in 2019 the drought affected all of Central Europe while the eastern part of Central Europe was less affected in 2018. The drought of 2015 lasted the longest but the maximum water was only about half the maximum deficit of 2019 (36).

The extreme 2022 drought in Central and Southern Europe was characterized by very low soil moisture and river water levels, severely impacting multiple sectors across many countries (55).

Scientists used tree-ring stable isotopes from 147 oaks that grew over the past 2,110 years in what are today the Czech Republic and parts of south-eastern Bavaria to reconstruct hydroclimate variability in temperate areas of Europe. They concluded that the sequence of recent European summer droughts since 2015 is unprecedented in the past 2,110 years. This hydroclimatic anomaly, they stated, is probably caused by anthropogenic warming and associated changes in the position of the summer jet stream (49).  

1. A human influence, but not straightforward: First, the analyses do reveal a human influence on droughts since 1900, but not a continuous increasing trend. Three distinct periods were identified. In the first half of the century (1900-1949), a signal of greenhouse-gas-forced change is robustly detectable. Multiple observational datasets and reconstructions using data from tree rings confirm that human activities were probably affecting the worldwide risk of droughts as early as the beginning of the twentieth century. Around mid-century, however, from 1950 to 1975, tree ring data and climate reconstructions do not show any greenhouse gas influence on droughts. On the contrary: a trend of drought decrease is revealed. According to the authors of this study, it looks like air pollution (aerosols) and volcanic eruptions blocked sunlight and influenced rainfall such that the drought trend was reversed. The influence of greenhouse gases on drought increase re-emerged in recent decades (1981 to present) when air pollution declined, and this signal is likely to grow stronger in the next several decades (33).
2. Particularly clear at the global scale: Second, clear signals of drought increase, and decrease around mid-century, are only revealed by looking at the global scale. Simultaneous drying in Australia, Mexico and the Mediterranean, for example, is a stronger signal than drying in any one of those regions in isolation. On a regional scale, for instance focusing on Europe or North America only, natural variability is too large compared to the signal we're looking for. Still, changes at the regional scale do reflect the global signal: positive trends in the early half of the twentieth century, negative trends at mid-twentieth century, and positive trends again since the 1980’s (33).

Acceleration droughts since 1980

Global warming is making the atmosphere thirstier, and this has made droughts more frequent and more intense worldwide over the last four decades. Also, they now affect larger areas. This is not only due to declines in precipitation. Higher air temperatures because of global warming have increased evaporation from the soil and transpiration by plants. The atmosphere is getting thirstier (56).

Scientists analysed global datasets of droughts spanning more than a century, from 1901 to 2022. They found an increasing trend in the atmosphere’s thirst – or ‘atmospheric evaporative demand’ in scientific terms – at the global scale that has led to a 40% higher drought severity worldwide in 2022 compared with one century ago. Not only have dry regions become drier, wet areas are also experiencing drying trends. These changes started around 1980 and accelerated in recent years (56).

In recent years – from 2018 to 2022 – the areas in drought were 74% larger on average compared with the period 1981–2017. More than half of this increase was due to the increase of the atmospheric evaporative demand. The year 2022 was record-breaking, with 30% of the global land area affected by moderate and extreme droughts, with the atmosphere’s increasing thirst a key driving force (56).

In Europe, 82% of the land area experienced drought in 2022. That year, annual precipitation across Europe dropped by up to 35% below the 1981–2022 average, and the atmospheric evaporative demand increased by up to 40%. The drought affected most of Europe, except for large parts of Scandinavia (56).

The observed trends are likely to continue in the future. As warming continues, atmospheric thirst will grow, as will droughts.

From 1950 to 2021, the average mean air dryness during the summer half year (April to September) has increased all over Europe. At the same time, the average mean soil moisture in the topsoil (0–7 cm) during the summer half year has decreased in Mediterranean Europe and most of Central Europe. In Northern Europe, the topsoil has become wetter.

Extremes are increasing: Compared with these average summer conditions, extremely low soil moisture and extremely high air dryness have become even more extreme. The 10% lowest soil moisture values during the summer half year have decreased by 15%–25% from the period 1950–1990 (reference) to 1991–2021 (present) in Mediterranean and Central Europe. This means that the intensity of extreme soil dryness has increased by 15–25 %. In Northern Europa, the intensity of extreme soil dryness has decreased by 10%. The intensity of extreme air dryness has increased all over Europe by about 15%. The change was most dramatic for Mediterranean Europe, with more than 50% increase in air dryness intensity for most of southern Europe (54).

Extremes are more common: Also, these extreme conditions occur more often now compared with the reference period 1950–1990. Across Europe, compared with 1950–1990, the frequency of extreme events has increased by 20% for soil dryness, and by 60% for air dryness. The largest changes occurred over Central and Mediterranean Europe. Most of Mediterranean and Central Europe now shows a 50% higher frequency of extreme soil dryness events in comparison to this reference period. The frequency of extreme air dryness events has more than doubled in about one-quarter of Europe (54).

Compound dryness: In general, changes in extreme soil dryness and extreme air dryness are closely linked. The co-occurrence of conditions of extreme soil and extreme air dryness is called ‘extreme compound dryness’. This co-occurrence results from the interaction between the soil and the atmosphere, where low air humidity increases evapotranspiration which then reduces soil moisture. The latter, in turn, reduces evapotranspiration and dries near-surface air, creating a positive feedback loop. Compared with 1950–1990, the frequency of extreme compound dryness has increased by 70% (54).

Three-fold increase by 2100: Climate model simulations indicate that, under a worst-case scenario of climate change, the frequency of compound dry extremes across Europe could be more than three times as high during mid-century (2031–2065) compared with 1950–1990, and more than four times as high by the end of this century (2066–2100). According to these simulations, the intensity of extreme soil dryness will not increase much further. The intensity of air dryness, however, could increase across Europe on average by 33% and 65% by mid-century and the end of this century, respectively, compared to 1950–1990 (54).

Impact on nature and crop yields: Changes in the humidity of the soil and the air affect vegetation productivity. More CO2 in the atmosphere will stimulate this productivity and increase carbon uptake capacity and crop yields. This effect could be highly compromised, however, due to the rise in dry extremes in Europe. According to the scientists of this study, a sharp increase in exposure to soil and air drought could lead to “a weaker terrestrial carbon sink and compromised food security across Europe” (54).

While precipitation deficits primarily drove the soil moisture drought of the extreme 2022 drought, human-induced global warming contributed to over 30% of the drought intensity and its spatial extent via enhanced evaporation (55).

Trends in droughts 1902-2019

The variability of droughts across Europe has been analyzed over the period 1902-2019 (37). Southern Europe and Central Europe showed a significant drying trend as a response to an increase in temperature and evapotranspiration and not necessarily a rainfall deficit (38, see also 50). Northern Europe showed a wetting trend. Southern Europe and Central Europe are the regions in Europe most prone to drought over the last decades; these regions have changed from a rainfall-deficit-dominated drought risk to a more temperature-dominated drought risk, especially over the last two decades (37). The drought events of 1920/21 and 2018/19 are the most extreme in terms of spatial extent and amplitude over the last 120 years. While the 1920/21 event was driven mainly by a significant rain- fall deficit, the 2018/19 event (the second most extreme) was driven mainly by extremely high temperatures and increased evaporation rates (37). 

Over the historical period 1950-2013, dry periods in the European summer months June, July and August have become hotter, leading to an increase in the occurrence of long-duration dry periods with extremely high temperatures. Soil moisture drought events are setting in faster and becoming more severe due to higher temperatures during dry periods (34).

Globally, dry areas are growing, by a factor of more than two over the past 40 years (1). However, currently available records suggest that, while increasing summer dryness has been observed in Central and Southern Europe since the 1950s, no consistent trends can be seen over the rest of Europe (2,3,4). According to the IPCC there is medium confidence that anthropogenic influence has contributed to some changes in drought patterns since the 1950s and in particular trends towards more intense and longer droughts in Southern Europe (3).

The frequency of meteorological droughts in Europe has increased since 1950 in parts of southern Europe and central Europe (Austria and Hungary), but droughts have become less frequent in northern Europe and parts of eastern Europe. Trends in drought severity also show significant increases in the Mediterranean region (in particular the Iberian Peninsula, France, Italy and Albania) and parts of central and south-eastern Europe, and decreases in northern and parts of eastern Europe (17).

With few exceptions, trends in droughts over Western Europe are statistically non-significant from a long- term perspective, according to a study on meteorological droughts in the period 1851-2018. The temporal variability of drought in Western Europe is more dominant than long-term trends. In general, drought episodes experienced in the last two or three decades have precedents during the last 170 years (42).

Most stream gauges in Europe show a decrease in summer low flows over the second half of the 20th century (15). However, current data availability is insufficient for attributing this trend to global climate change (18). 

Economic impacts of recent droughts

Overall, the summer of 2003 heat wave and drought had a direct economic impact in Europe of about EUR 17 billion (39). The summer of 2015 was the warmest and driest summer since 1950 over the central and eastern parts of Europe and the economic impacts of this event were estimated at EUR 2.172 billion (40). Over the period 2018-2019 more than 50 % of Central Europe was affected by drought, with significant consequences for the economy, society, and biodiversity (41).  

• Higher risk in Mediterranean, central Europe, the Amazon, and southern Africa. According to the results of this study drought risk increases significantly for both warming targets in the Mediterranean, central Europe, the Amazon, and southern Africa. Moreover, for these four regions the additional 0.5°C of warming from 1.5°C to 2°C leads to significantly drier mean conditions and higher risk of consecutive drought years. Southern Australia has a comparable increase in drought risk between 1.5°C and 2°C, while Southeast Asia sees no significant change in drought risk under any future scenario. The results of this study indicate that when warming is limited to 1.5°C or 2°C, projected increases in precipitation and temperature/evaporative demand may balance each other over the U.S. Southwest and Central Plains, leading to little change in drought risk relative to present day (14).
• Drought events that last for several years. The risk of a drought “event” that lasts for four consecutive years, roughly similar to the recent 2012-2015 drought in California, substantially increases for the Mediterranean under the 1.5°C and 2°C warming targets. For central Europe, this risk of consecutive years of drought is lower but also increases for a warming of 2°C relative to 1.5°C. The Amazon experiences the strongest increase of the risk of such a drought “event”, while the response for Southern Africa is similar to the Mediterranean. Southern Australia also experiences an increase in risk of consecutive drought years under both 1.5°C and 2°C scenarios relative to present day. No major changes are simulated for the U.S. Southwest and Central Plains, and Southeast Asia (14).
• A high-end scenario of climate change. What if global warming exceeds the 2°C warming target? Simulations with a high-end (RCP 8.5) scenario of climate change show that the risk of consecutive drought years increases substantially in all regions, including the U.S. Southwest and Central Plains but except Southeast Asia. In Southeast Asia, evaporation strongly increases but this increase is balanced by a more-or-less comparable increase of precipitation. The latter is also shown in simulations for the U.S. Southwest and Central Plains under the 1.5°C and 2°C warming targets, but his balance does not hold for stronger warming, causing the U.S. Southwest and Central Plains to dry under a high-end (RCP 8.5) scenario of climate change (14).

Prolonged droughts globally

A similar study was carried out on a global scale, focused on changes in drought conditions over 12-month periods for 1.5 and 2°C global warming levels, and for 3°C global warming (20). The latter is closer to what is expected by the end of the 21st century if current emission trends are retained. This was done for a number of climate projections that, in combination, address the uncertainty in the climate projections of a large number of climate models. 

This study shows that as a result of 1.5 to 2°C global warming, long-term droughts will happen 5 to 10 times more frequent for most of Africa, aside the zone around the equator, but also the Caribbean, Central America, Central and West Asia, Oceania, and north-west China. They will also occur far more frequent in southern Europe, large parts of western and eastern Europe, southern and central United States, Chile, and central and eastern regions of Brazil. Current 1-in-100-year droughts would occur every two to five years. At these warming levels, the magnitude of droughts is likely to double in 30% of the global landmass (20). 

Approximately two thirds of the world population will experience progressively longer and more frequent droughts. The study indicates that global mean drought length progressively increases with warming. Global warming has already reached almost 1°C. A further increase up to 1.5°C will increase the length of these droughts by a month. The increase of global mean drought length rapidly accelerates when global warming further increases up to 3°C of global warming: up to 4.2 months for each °C warming. This acceleration in drought duration could lead to more frequent mega-droughts (a decade-scale drought) like we haven’t observed often in the past. Examples of these mega-droughts are the dust bowl in the United States, the persistent drought in the Sahel, or the recent “Millennium Drought” in southeast Australia (20).

There are, however, also regions in the world that will not suffer from increasing drought. In parts of the globe the supply of water outweighs continental drying and the water balance will not progressively decline. These regions include northern Europe, the south-eastern part of South America, Central Africa, Canada, the Russian Federation, and China (except the north-west) (20).

Drought risk will increase this century, despite future emission reductions. In general, there is a greater propensity to severe droughts in the Mediterranean ecosystems by the end of the century, which may be especially pertinent when specific impacts on human activities are taken into consideration, such as livestock farming, agricultural yields and household subsistence (22).

Droughts in the root zone under 1.5 and 2 °C global warming

Global drought trends under 2 °C compared with 1.5 °C global warming have been estimated based on multi-model simulations of climate change. A distinction was made between two types of droughts. Meteorological droughts describe precipitation deficiencies resulting from the combined effect of changes in precipitation and evapotranspiration. Droughts in the soil, often called ‘agricultural droughts’, refer to the impact of meteorological droughts on the soil water that is available for plants (32). In this study a dry period is called a ‘drought event’ when dry conditions last for at least three continuous months. Whether conditions are considered ‘dry’ was derived from the quantification of four drought indicators. These indicators describe precipitation deficiency, net precipitation deficiency (including evapotranspiration), soil moisture at the surface, and soil moisture at the root zone, respectively.

Globally, the frequency and duration may increase much faster for meteorological droughts than for surface soil moisture droughts and root zone soil moisture droughts, according to this study. Meteorological droughts are projected to occur about 36% more frequent under 1.5 °C global warming, and 62% more frequent under 2 °C warming. For surface soil moisture droughts the estimated frequency increases are 5% (1.5 °C warming) and 14% (2 °C warming), respectively (32).

On average, meteorological droughts are projected to last about 15% and 20% longer under 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming, respectively. For surface soil moisture droughts the estimated duration increases are 5% (1.5 °C warming) and 2% (2 °C warming), respectively. The spread around these average numbers are large, however. Projected drought increase in the root zone is generally less than at the soil surface (32).

Surface soil moisture drought risk will probably increase in America, South America, Europe, southern Africa, southern China and Australia. For Europe, the projected frequency increase of surface soil moisture droughts is 32% (± 5%) and 51% (± 6%) for 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming, respectively. The increase of root zone soil moisture drought risk will be less, however. Root zone soil moisture drought frequency in Europe is projected to increase by 5% and 15% for 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming, respectively. The areas affected by droughts will increase less than 10%; this increase will be largest in Africa, Oceania and South America (32).

For food production and terrestrial biodiversity soil moisture in the root zone is particularly relevant. This study shows that changes in meteorological and soil moisture droughts do not have to be the same. In fact, root soil moisture droughts may not increase as much as meteorological droughts, but still seem to increase in some areas. Limiting globally averaged temperature rise below 1.5 °C will substantially reduce drought risk in duration and frequency relative to the 2 °C level (32).   

What is driving future water scarcity: climate change or population growth?

The frequency of droughts will increase in the next several decades, according to several studies (4). This will probably increase humans’ exposure to water scarcity as well. In addition, population growth or decline may increase or decrease exposure to water scarcity, and these effects may vary from one country to another. What is driving future water scarcity: climate change or population growth?

For the world as a whole and for individual countries, this has been assessed by studying the impacts of (a) population growth, (b) increased incidence of droughts due to climate change, and (c) the combined influence of the two through their interaction (12). Both a low and high emissions scenario of climate change was assumed (the so-called RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios), and a large number of models were used to adequately cover the spread of uncertainties in the results of different models. For population growth, a medium fertility population growth scenario was assumed (United Nations, 2013), producing a world population of approximately 10.5 billion by the end of the century. Drought was characterized on a monthly basis by calculation the difference between precipitation and potential evapotranspiration for each month in the previous two years and accumulating these differences.

According to this assessment, population growth alone increases the average monthly number of people exposed to extreme drought from 85.5 now to 121.0 million (+35.5 million) at the end of this century (2081–2100), worldwide. Climate change alone may increase this number from 85.5 to 315.5 million (+230.0 million) (under the high end scenario of climate change RCP 8.5). Combining population growth and climate change, population exposure reaches 472.3 million (+386.8 million relative to the present). These results show that population growth is responsible for only 9.2 % of the increase in numbers exposed to extreme drought while climate change alone accounts for 59.5 % of the increase. The interaction between climate change and population growth explains the remaining 31.3 % of change in population exposure—reflecting the fact that the growing population tends to be in regions with more frequent droughts (12).

The results above refer to one scenario of population growth, one scenario of climate change, and the end of this century. These results seem to be robust, however. Similar results are obtained under a higher population growth scenario, under the low-end scenario of climate change (RCP 4.5), and for the middle of the century (2041–2060): climate change plays the primary role (12).

Similar to the global situation, climate change is the main source of increasing drought exposure in most individual countries. There are exceptions to the rule. In Russia, for instance, substantial population decline will dominate over more droughts under climate change. In Spain, on the other hand, the population decline is being dominated by the impact of climate change (12).

The exact numbers should not be taken literally given the very large uncertainties in this assessment. Still, the authors conclude that climate change mitigation should be the main policy response in efforts to alleviate numbers exposed to future extreme droughts. Plausible future decreases in population growth will not make a major dent in the very large increase of numbers likely to be exposed to extreme drought through the rest of this century in most parts of the world (12). 

The impact of urbanization, excluding climate change

The impact of urbanization on the extent of urban areas exposed to flood and drought hazards globally has been assessed, without factoring in the potential impacts from climate change (7). According to this assessment, the urban extent in dry lands will increase strongly. Across all regions and all dry-lands, most urban expansion is expected to occur in semi-arid regions of China. The most urban expansion in hyper-arid regions is expected in Northern Africa. For Western Europe the (projected) percent urban extent in dry-lands are 5% (2000) and 6% (2030), and for Eastern Europe 11% in both years (7).

The impact of climate change

The impact of human water use and climate change on future low flows and associated hydrological drought has been assessed on a global scale for 1971–2099 (based on climate projections from five general circulation models (GCMs) and four RCP emission scenarios) (6). In this assessment low flow is defined as the discharge that is equalled or exceeded 90% of the time, and human water use includes irrigation and reservoir regulation, but excludes industrial and domestic water use. No future changes in population and land use were included. The results show that climate change has a negative impact on the low flow regime (decrease of 10% or more) in South-America, Australia, Southern-Africa, Southeast Asia and the Mediterranean, for all four emission scenarios. Positive impacts on the low flow regime are found in Northwest Africa and large parts of Northern Europe, Russia and Canada (6). According to the results of this assessment human influence can account for almost 100% of the changes in future hydrological drought in areas such as Asia, Middle East and North-Africa (Mediterranean). These areas are heavily impacted by water abstraction and reservoirs are not enough to compensate for this. In these regions low flows are expected to be even lower in future and droughts will likely become more severe (6).

Globally, both precipitation and evapotranspiration (= physical evaporation plus biological transpiration) are expected to increase with warming. The combined effect has been projected (with a number of General Circulation Models) for the end of the 21st century for a high-end climate change scenario (the RCP8.5 scenario). The relative contributions from projected changes in moisture supply (precipitation) versus evaporative demand determine whether droughts will become more severe in the future and will cover wider areas (5). The projected climate changes suggest increased drying, driven primarily by increases in (potential) evapotranspiration. This will likely have significant ramifications for globally important regions of agricultural production in the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, including Europe. The percentage of global land area projected to experience at least moderate drying by the end of the 21st century may increase from 12 to 30 % (5).

Will drought events become more frequent and severe in Europe?

A picture of drought trends in Europe until the end of the 21st century has been presented, based on a combination of indicators that characterize drought trends through changes in precipitation and evapotranspiration (and thus high temperatures). The indicators have been calculated from the results of a large multi-model ensemble of high-resolution climate projections. Two future scenarios of climate change were used: a moderate (RCP4.5) and a high-end scenario (RCP 8.5) (23).

Observed trends since the 1950s: From the 1950s to the 2010s, southern Europe experienced increasing drought frequency and severity (24) with the Mediterranean region as a hotspot especially in spring and summer (25,37); a clear increase was also evident in the Carpathian region (26,37). Northern Europe, on the contrary, showed a tendency towards wetter conditions (27,37), whilst central and eastern Europe act as a transition zone (28).

Future trends at moderate global warming: Under the moderate scenario of global warming, the increasing drought trend is projected to continue and grow stronger until the end of the 21st century over southern and western Europe, while northern Europe is projected to revert the past trend to see more frequent and severe droughts. Central Europe, eastern Europe, and southern Scandinavia show only a moderate increase, and Iceland is characterized by a moderate decrease in drought frequency. Only over the Mediterranean area drought events will become significantly more severe (23).

For southern Europe, the projected increase of drought frequency and severity is due to more frequent extreme rainfall events combined with a general decrease of total precipitation (29) and a projected temperature rise, including a higher probability of severe heat waves (30). Over northern Europe, the projected temperature rise, resulting in an increased evaporative demand, outbalances the projections of increasing precipitation (31), leading to a projected increase of droughts over northernmost Scandinavia.

Future trends at strong global warming: Under the high-end scenario of global warming, drought frequency is projected to increase over the whole of Europe, with a few exceptions: moderate increase over Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, and central Scandinavia, and mixed tendencies over Iceland. The largest increases are projected over southern Europe where droughts and extreme droughts could be up to 50% more frequent, as well as over France and the British Islands (up to +40%), but also over central Europe and Russia (up to +35%). Droughts will become much more severe over the southern third of Europe and over northernmost Scandinavia. Excluding central Iceland and southern Norway, the entire European continent will be affected by more frequent and severe droughts as the century passes (23).

Future seasonal trends: According to the projections in this study, northern Europe will experience fewer winter droughts in the future than during the last decades but more frequent droughts in spring and autumn. Western Europe will also experience fewer winter droughts, and more frequent droughts in other seasons, especially in the summer. In central and eastern Europe there will be more frequent droughts in spring and summer. Southern Europe will experience more frequent droughts in all seasons (23).

Drought hotspots: According to the authors, their findings reinforce the view of the Mediterranean area as a drought hotspot for the entire 21st century: southern Europe shows both the largest drought frequency values over the recent past and the largest increase in future periods. The Mediterranean region also stands out as the area with Europe’s largest increase of total drought severity as the 21st century progresses, both under the moderate and high-end scenario. Other possible hotspots for drought hazard and risk in future decades are northern and northeastern Scandinavia, southern England, and western Europe. Like the Mediterranean region, these regions are also projected to face the largest increase of drought frequency and severity under both scenarios of climate change (23).

Other studies on droughts in Europe

The Mediterranean, Amazon, southern Africa, and Central America are the most impacted regions where extreme drought probability is projected to become between 1.6 and 4.4 times larger between now and the end of this century, depending on the scenario of climate change and socioeconomic developments. Drought risk is the combination of drought probability, and exposure and vulnerability. For the increasing risk cases, about 50% of the increasing magnitude is attributed to probability (hazard) and the remaining 50% is attributed to exposure and vulnerability (52).

For the future, summer dryness is expected to increase in Central and Southern Europe during the 21st century, leading to enhanced risk of drought, longer dry spells and stronger soil moisture deficits (1,4,21). Based on the balance of evidence coming from multi-model experiments, the following changes in summer dryness are expected in the course of the 21st century (1):

• Mediterranean, Southern and Central Europe: summer dryness is expected to increase during the 21st century – longer dry spells, stronger soil moisture deficits;
• Northern Europe: no major changes in dryness are expected until the end of this century.

Climate model projections indicate that the frequency and duration of extreme meteorological droughts will significantly increase in the future (19). These projections showed the largest increases in frequency for extreme droughts in parts of the Iberian Peninsula, southern Italy and the eastern Mediterranean, especially at the end of the century with respect to the baseline period 1971-2000. The changes are most pronounced for
 the RCP8.5 high emissions scenario and slightly less extreme for the moderate (RCP4.5) scenario. 

In northwestern Europe, multi-year drought events occur on average about twice in a 30-year period in the present climate. The probability of these drought events are projected to double at 1 °C additional global warming relative to present-day (51).

An increase of the number, mean duration and mean spatial extent of very long dry spell events was also found for the wet season by the end of the twenty-first century, at the Mediterranean Basin scale for a moderate (RCP 4.5) and high-end scenario (RCP 8.5) of climate change (35); the western and eastern Mediterranean Basin should be the most concerning by the strengthening of the very long dry spell events.

Changes in river flow extremes at a +2°C global warming are currently of central interest as this is the global target defined by policymakers to lower international greenhouse gases emissions. The impacts of a +2°C global warming on hydrological droughts has been assessed for Europe for a combination of different models (global and regional climate models, hydrological models); the changes in floods and droughts were compared with the reference period 1971 – 2000. The results show that drought magnitude and duration may increase in Spain, France, Italy, Greece, the Balkans, south of the UK and Ireland. For the rest of Europe, the projections generally show a decrease of drought magnitude and duration (8). 

Increasing economic drought impacts in Europe with global warming

Since the 1950s, the patterns of drought across Europe are changing. Northern Europe is getting wetter while southern and eastern Europe seem to be getting dryer (43). Droughts could become more frequent, more severe, and longer lasting in parts of Europe, especially in the south (44). The average annual economic consequences of droughts in Europe in the early 2000s have been estimated to be around €6 billion per year (45).

A European-wide study has been carried out to project how these trends continue (46). These projections have been made for four levels of global warming: 1.5, 2, 3 and 4°C. In addition, the impacts of socio-economic developments have been included, and scenarios of societies adapting to longer lasting and more intense droughts, and thus reducing their vulnerability to droughts.

Future drought projections have been calculated from an ensemble of climate projections from 11 combinations of global and regional climate models. Direct economic losses from droughts have been estimated from reported losses of past drought events and expert knowledge. These estimates do not include indirect effects on business production and the flow of goods and services. Economic and budgetary projections for the European Union have been used to include long-term demographic, land-use, and sector productivity dynamics.

In this study, Europe is defined as the European Union plus the United Kingdom.

North-south divide: The results show a clear regional contrast in the evolution of future drought risk in Europe with global warming. Drought impacts will strongly increase in southern and western Europe, and strongly decline in northern and northeastern regions. A north-south divide will develop where especially crop productivity and hydropower production will strongly decline in southern Europe, and the suitability for growing crops and hydro-power potential will increase in the north (47).

At 1.5°C global warming, drought frequency likely increases over half of the Mediterranean and one-fourth of the Atlantic region. At 4°C global warming, drought frequency is projected to double over nearly 60% of Mediterranean, 40% of Atlantic and 10% of continental Europe (46). The uncertainty of these numbers is large, however. In boreal Europe and northeastern parts of continental Europe, drought hazard will decline; precipitation increase will likely outweigh the increase in evaporative demand due to global warming (48). In central and eastern Europe, the projections also indicate a trend of declining drought intensity, but these trends are less strong.

Present impacts of droughts: In this study, the period 1981-2010 was defined as a reference for future projections. Average annual economic drought losses in the European Union and United Kingdom in this reference period are estimated at €9 billion per year. The uncertainty range on this estimate is large though: €3.4 to €26.6 billion per year. Highest annual drought losses now occur in Spain: on average €1.5 billion per year. Drought losses are also relatively high in Italy and France. Drought losses are lowest in Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (46).

Currently, agriculture losses account for more than 50% of total drought losses in Europe, with the highest sector share in the Mediterranean region (60%) and the lowest in the boreal region (39%). Impacts to the energy sector represent 23% of the total damage, to public water supply between 8% and 20%, to infrastructure subsidence around 8%, and to the transport sector (inland water transportation) 2% (46).

Impacts of global warming: According to the results, global warming increases European drought losses from the current €9 billion per year to €9.7 billion per year at 1.5°C global warming. At 2, 3 and 4°C global warming, average annual drought losses would increase to reach €12.2, €17.3, and €25 billion per year, respectively (46).

The strongest rise is projected for the Atlantic region and, albeit slightly less, the Mediterranean. The projected increase is relatively strong for Greece, Belgium, Cyprus, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. The boreal region will experience a strong decrease in drought losses, which drop to 20% of current values at high levels of global warming. This drop is large in all Scandinavian countries, the Baltics and Poland. Drought losses remain stable in Denmark and Germany (46).

Direct economic losses are fairly small compared with the total size of European economies and remain mostly well below 1% of total GDP. Economic impacts are relatively high for agriculture, however, up to more than 10% in the Mediterranean at high levels of global warming (46).

Impacts of socioeconomic developments: When we add scenarios of socioeconomic developments to the impacts of global warming, projected drought damages in 2100 are much larger: €25, €31, €45, and €65 billion per year at 1.5, 2, 3 and 4°C global warming, respectively. Again, the strongest increases in absolute drought losses are projected for western and southern parts of Europe. Remarkably, the share of the agriculture sector in total drought losses will gradually reduce throughout Europe because agriculture will likely become less important for future EU economies compared with the current situation (46).

Societies will adapt: These numbers are based on the assumption that future economies are as vulnerable to droughts as they are today. This is highly unlikely. Societies will adapt. Crops will be developed that are more resistant to water shortage, and water-use efficiency in hydropower production will be improved. Future developments that reduce vulnerability to droughts will probably halve these drought losses in 2100. As a result, drought losses may be even lower in 2100 than they are today in several European countries, even at high levels of global warming. In Bulgaria, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, France, Ireland, Greece, and Belgium, droughts will still have a stronger impact on the country’s economy compared with now. Additional adaptation efforts will be needed in these countries to further restrict the economic impacts of future droughts (46).

In general, adaptive measures that may prove particularly effective include rainwater harvesting, conservation tillage, maintaining vegetation cover, planting trees in steeply-sloping fields, mini-terracing for soil and moisture conservation, improved pasture management, water re-use, desalination, and more efficient soil and irrigation-water management. Restoring and protecting freshwater habitats, and managing natural floodplains, are additional adaptive measures that are not usually part of conventional management practice (4).

The increased drought vulnerability as a direct result of human water abstraction can be compensated by reservoirs. Reservoirs retain the water for some time and thus lead to a smoothed hydrograph, with lower peak flows and higher low flows. This is especially the case for large parts of the United States and Europe, where the number of reservoirs is large (6).