Published October 13, 2021
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Lessons from the 2018–2019 European droughts: A collective need for unifying drought risk management

Creators

  • 1. University of Freiburg
  • 2. Finnish Environment Institute
  • 3. Aalto University
  • 4. Uppsala University
  • 5. University of Birmingham
  • 6. Energy Institute
  • 7. University of Oslo
  • 8. UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Wallingford, UK
  • 9. Global Change Research Institute CAS, Brno, Czech Republic
  • 10. University of Latvia
  • 11. European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy
  • 12. Complutense University of Madrid
  • 13. Comenius University in Bratislava
  • 14. Johannes Kepler University of Linz
  • 15. Reykjavík University
  • 16. Vrije Universiteit Brussel
  • 17. Institute of Hydrometeorology and Seismology, Montenegro
  • 18. University of Tartu
  • 19. Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service
  • 20. Laboratory of Applied Climatology, Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute, Kyiv, Ukraine
  • 21. Institute of Statistics, University of Natural Resources and Live Sciences, Vienna, Austria
  • 22. Hungarian Meteorological Service, Budapest, Hungary
  • 23. Aarhus University
  • 24. Sofia University
  • 25. Polish Academy of Sciences
  • 26. Wageningen University and Research Centre
  • 27. University of Bologna
  • 28. Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
  • 29. Technical University of Madrid
  • 30. INRAE, RiverLy, Villeurbanne, France
  • 31. INRAE
  • 32. Department of Meteorology, National Hydrometeorological Service, 1000 Skopje, North Macedonia
  • 33. Utrecht University
  • 34. UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education
  • 35. Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
  • 36. University of Belgrade

Description

Abstract. Drought events and their impacts vary spatially and temporally due to diverse pedo-climatic and hydrologic conditions, as well as variations in exposure and vulnerability, such as demographics and response actions. While hazardous severity and frequency of past drought events have been studied in detail, little is known about the effect of drought management strategies on the actual impacts, and how the hazard is perceived by relevant stakeholders for inducing action. In a continental study, we characterised and assessed the impacts and the perceptions of two recent drought events (2018 and 2019) in Europe and examined the relationship between management strategies and drought perception, hazard and impacts. The study was based on a pan-European survey involving national representatives from 28 countries and relevant stakeholders responding to a standard questionnaire. The survey focused on collecting information on stakeholders' perceptions of drought, impacts on water resources and beyond, water availability and current drought management strategies at national and regional scales. The survey results were compared with the actual drought hazard information registered by the European Drought Observatory (EDO) for 2018 and 2019. The results highlighted high diversity in drought perceptions across different countries and in values of implemented drought management strategies to alleviate impacts by increasing national and sub-national awareness and resilience. The study concludes with an urgent need to further reduce drought impacts by constructing and implementing a European macro-level drought governance approach, such as a directive, which would strengthen national drought management and lessen harm to human and natural potentials.
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