In northern Italy, which experienced its worst drought for more than 70 years last summer, the mountains have very low snow levels and lakes have shrunk, including Lake Como, which is less than 18% full. Italy, located in the “climate hotspot” of the Mediterranean, has also been badly affected. On Sunday, hundreds of residents of the mountain village of L’Espunyola, about 70 miles north of Barcelona, led a procession to appeal to Our Lady of the Torrents to bring them rain.Ī mass "to ask for rain" in the church of Mare de Deu dels Torrents, in in L'Espunyola, Spain, on MaMarc Trilla/Europa Press/Getty Images Water is so scarce, some farmers in the region have turned to prayer. “This is an extraordinary measure … and is adopted to preserve the water quality… and be able to guarantee the population’s demands as much as possible,” the Catalan government said in a statement. In mid-March, the Catalan Water Agency started removing fish in an attempt to save some of them and protect the water quality in what remains of the reservoir, which more than five million people rely on for drinking water. As the water levels have fallen, the remnants have emerged of a centuries-old village and its church, which were flooded when the reservoir was created in the 1960s. The Sau Reservoir, about 60 miles north of Barcelona, is now only around 9% full, according to Catalan Water Agency data. Just over the border, in Catalonia, northeast Spain, is a similar situation of parched reservoirs and thirsty crops.Īverage water levels in Catalonia’s reservoirs are at about 27% and there are already some water restrictions in place. The Sau reservoir, about 60 miles north of Barcelona, Spain, on March 20, 2023. Last year, nearly 400 municipalities in the region had restricted or disrupted drinking water supplies. “We often talk about the financial side but the human side is very affected.”Īs summer approaches, the situation “does not bode well,” Solacroup said. “Unless the lake is filled sufficiently, farmers will not be able to irrigate, and the survival of many farms is at stake,” he said. Livestock farmers are worried about having enough feed for their animals, and some may even be forced to reduce their herds, Rouquet said. Some have stopped planting certain crops, others have sown more cereal crops in the hope that rain will fall. “Lake Montbel remains at an abnormally low level,” Franck Solacroup, the regional director of the Adour-Garonne Water Agency, which covers the area that includes Lake Montbel, told CNN.įarmers like Rouquet, who rely on the lake, are having to make tough decisions on what to grow. More rain has fallen in March but not nearly enough. Added to that, snowfall has been very low, meaning less snowmelt to recharge rivers in the spring. And the warm start to the year is coming hand-in-hand with exceptionally low rainfall.īetween January and February, France had more than 30 consecutive days with no significant rainfall – the longest stretch since records began in 1959. It was the hottest March day on record in the country since 1900, the agency said. Temperatures in southwest France soared to 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) on Wednesday, according to Météo-France, the country’s weather service. Still reeling from last year’s blistering summer and the worst drought in 500 years, parts of the continent have experienced such low levels of snow and rain that fears are growing for what might be in store as summer approaches – and beyond.Īs climate change intensifies, scientists say we can expect droughts and heatwaves to become more frequent and more severe – putting huge pressure on water resources.Ī buoy is seen on the banks of the partially dry Lake Montbel as France faces a record winter dry spell. While in the United States, the snow and rain that have pummeled California have helped fill reservoirs and ease unrelenting drought, winter has been far from kind to many parts of Europe. This story of extremes is one that’s playing out across swaths of Europe. The lake has faced difficult times before “but this is exceptional,” Rouquet told CNN. “In the history of the lake, created in the early 1980s, this is the first time that this situation has been so serious,” said Boris Rouquet, a farmer and the water lead for the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions in Ariège, the region where Lake Montbel is located.
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