the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Lessons from the 2018–2019 European droughts: a collective need for unifying drought risk management
Veit Blauhut
Michael Stoelzle
Lauri Ahopelto
Manuela I. Brunner
Claudia Teutschbein
Doris E. Wendt
Vytautas Akstinas
Sigrid J. Bakke
Lucy J. Barker
Lenka Bartošová
Agrita Briede
Carmelo Cammalleri
Ksenija Cindrić Kalin
Lucia De Stefano
Miriam Fendeková
David C. Finger
Marijke Huysmans
Mirjana Ivanov
Jaak Jaagus
Jiří Jakubínský
Svitlana Krakovska
Gregor Laaha
Monika Lakatos
Kiril Manevski
Mathias Neumann Andersen
Nina Nikolova
Marzena Osuch
Pieter van Oel
Kalina Radeva
Renata J. Romanowicz
Elena Toth
Mirek Trnka
Marko Urošev
Julia Urquijo Reguera
Eric Sauquet
Aleksandra Stevkov
Lena M. Tallaksen
Iryna Trofimova
Anne F. Van Loon
Michelle T. H. van Vliet
Jean-Philippe Vidal
Niko Wanders
Micha Werner
Patrick Willems
Nenad Živković
Related authors
Drought affects not only water availability but also agriculture, the economy, and communities. This study explores how public policies help reduce these impacts in Ceará, Northeast Brazil. Using qualitative drought monitoring data, interviews, and policy analysis, we found that policies supporting local economies help lessen drought effects. However, most reported impacts are still related to water shortages, showing the need for broader strategies beyond water supply investment.
Elasticityrefers to how much the amount of water in a river changes with precipitation. We usually calculate this using average streamflow values; however, the amount of water within rivers is also dependent on stored water sources. Here, we look at how elasticity varies across the streamflow distribution and show that not only do low and high streamflows respond differently to precipitation change, but also these differences vary with water storage availability.
groundwater droughtscan limit supply, making it crucial to understand their regional connection. The Groundwater Drought Initiative (GDI) assesses spatial patterns in historic—recent groundwater droughts across Europe for the first time. Using an example dataset, we describe the background to the GDI and its methodological approach.
paired-catchmentapproach to quantify human influence on hydrological droughts. In this approach two similar catchments are compared and differences are attributed to the human activity present in one. In two case studies in UK and Australia, we found that groundwater abstraction aggravated streamflow drought by > 200 % and water transfer alleviated droughts with 25–80 %. Understanding the human influence on droughts can support water management decisions.
Related subject area
Our results show that while both methods lead to similar conclusions for two recent weather events in Sweden, the commonly used method risks underestimating the strength of the connection between the event and changes to the climate.