Water shortages have worsened in Germany and Europe, according to a joint German-American study

The water deficit has worsened in Germany and Europe over the past months, according to joint studies conducted by the German Helmholtz Center for Earth Sciences Research in Potsdam in cooperation with the American space agency NASA and the German Aeronautics and Space Center.

A spokesman for the Helmholz Center said: “We fear that water reserves will not recover by the end of the year, even if there is more rain than usual in the fall.”

Researchers monitor the total amount of water on the Earth's surface and below its surface. According to the Helmholtz Center for Geoscience Research, the extent to which water reserves have changed can be calculated based on this.

“Since 2015 we have been seeing increasingly drier conditions in Germany than in the 15 years before that,” said Anette Ecker, head of the Department of Global Geological Monitoring and Gravity Field at the Helmholtz Center for Geoscience Research.

She added that although the heavy rainy year of 2024 led to a recovery in water reserves, this was followed by a sharp decline again.

High temperature and increased evaporation

Overall, the decline in groundwater reserves “is responsible for the bulk of the long-term decline in water reserves in Germany,” she said.

The Helmholtz Center said that current data up to last June “have not yet been able to show the impact of the hot summer in Germany.” The effects of heat waves will only appear in the data in the coming months. This data is not expected to be available until the fall.

According to researchers, heat in particular reduces water reserves. Comparing the data with rainfall data showed that there is no long-term negative trend in rainfall amounts. But researchers are observing an increase in potential evaporation due to rising air temperatures, that is, “the amount of water that can move from the Earth’s surface to the atmosphere,” a Helmholtz Center spokesman said.

Edited by: Arif Jabo