Policy brief: EU water policy in times of climate extremes
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Advocacy
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Nature based solutions
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Freshwaters
Europe has just endured what Ursula von der Leyen referred to as “the summer of truth” in her State of the European Union speech. August was the warmest month ever recorded, wildfires ravaged landscapes in France, Spain and even temperate Belgium, while major rivers like the Danube and the Rhine shrank to historically low levels, disrupting energy supply and transport.
Despite that, the political response overlooks that these symptoms are not resulting from climate change alone; they are manifestations of a Europe that has been dried out as a result of water mismanagement.
As climate breakdown drives more frequent and intense extreme weather events, like intense heat and prolonged periods without rainfall followed by intense rainfall events, the EU must urgently address the issue of its poor watershed resilience by embracing restoration and protection of the natural water-storage features of landscapes as the first line of defence against wildfires, droughts and floods.
This brief – drafted under the Living Rivers Europe coalition – outlines the underlying causes of this summer’s extreme events (and the ones we can expect this autumn), the tools that EU water policies already offer to address them and what further action is needed:
