Europe Braces for Another Drought Crisis in 2023: Agriculture Sector at Risk
Last year was a record-breaking year for drought in Europe, with the majority of regions being under some kind of drought warning. The impact on agriculture was significant, with crops drying out and yields being severely affected. However, it appears that 2023 may be even worse. According to a recent report by the European Drought Observatory, the dry and warm winter of 2023 is affecting France, Italy, Spain, and other countries, with severe impacts on water availability and supply, particularly for agriculture and hydropower energy production.
The report highlights that the effects of the 2022 drought event are still perceptible in early 2023 in some areas, with a winter drought following a dry year resulting in water buffers in the snow pack, groundwater, and reservoirs being low or already depleted. This means that any further precipitation and temperature anomaly may affect water availability and supply, leading to a significant impact on the agriculture sector.
In France, the situation is so severe that water restrictions have already been imposed, with a water sobriety plan being developed to ensure sufficient water supply for essential purposes such as drinking water. The Italian observatory on water resources has also reported severe drought risk for public water supply for over 3 million people, with reduced river flows and storage in major lakes. The impact of drought is being felt across different agricultural sectors, with crops like rice being particularly affected in northern Italy. First assessments of the area to be sown indicate that it may be the lowest since 2000. In 2022, northern Italy lost about 26,000 hectares of rice paddies, and the situation seems to be even worse this year.
The lack of precipitation is reducing river flows and water resource storage of reservoirs in Spain, particularly in southern and north-eastern regions, with water restrictions already in place in Barcelona and the north-eastern region of Catalonia.
The severity of the drought conditions is being monitored by various organisations, including the European Drought Observatory (EDO), which uses the Combined Drought Indicator (CDI) to identify areas that may be affected by agricultural drought. The CDI combines the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), the Soil Moisture Index Anomaly (SMA), and the Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fAPAR) anomaly to classify areas according to three primary drought classes: Watch, Warning, and Alert. According to the latest report, many regions are currently sitting at the watch or warning level, with some regions, notably in France, Spain, Italy, and Ireland sitting at alert level.
It seems that European Farmers are once again in for another year of catastrophic drought, and if last year gives us any indication of the potential impacts, we can expect reductions in yields and price increases that will put additional pressure on a food supply chain that is already strained by the energy crisis and the war in Ukraine.