Droughts - Adapt or Die Part 2
The second part of a three-part article series on the occurrence of long periods droughts in the Netherlands.
At the moment of writing, it appears that 2022 is the second driest year on record for the Netherlands. Some days of intense rainfall have reduced the precipitation shortage, but water levels are going to remain low for some time to come. Since yesterday, the nation-wide water shortage has ended. However, significant differences between regions remain. In the south and east of the country, as well as in some coastal areas, the precipitation shortage remains well above 300 mm. This second article of a three-part series focuses on the consequences of these prolonged periods of droughts on society and on our ecosystem.
It is not only the Netherlands that has been dealing with a dry summer. Almost half of Europe has been under drought warning the past months. The previous article showed that global warming is causing a rise in more extreme and unpredictable weather, like prolonged droughts. Wales has even declared a drought this month, right in the middle of floods and heavy rainfall. We can therefore expect more and heavier droughts in the future. The consequences can be far-reaching.
First of all, extremely high temperatures are already causing millions of deaths. As summers keep getting warmer, heat is likely to bring about the deaths of even more people. Heat waves are considered the deadliest weather events, leading to more casualties than hurricanes, lightning, tornadoes, floods, and earthquakes put together.
Even on those who do not succumb to the heat, the heat is going to exact a toll. A Gallup poll found that a tripling of the number of hot days in 2020 compared to 2008 led to a decrease in life evaluation (how people view their current and future lives) of 6.5%. Compare this to a 3.7% decrease in life evaluation after the 2008-2009 financial crisis and you get an idea of how significant that is. As can be expected, the effect is stronger for older people and people that live in poorer countries.
Decreases like these are not only related to our physical health, but to our mental health as well. On days with extreme heat, emergency rooms admit more people with behavioural disorders and substance abuse problems, regardless of age, sex, or country. The observation that more people commit suicide during the spring and summer was already made in 1883 (pages 55-56). Not completely unrelated, our sleeping patterns are also disrupted by heat.
Besides the human toll, there is also a lot of material damage associated with droughts. One of the sectors that will be hit the hardest is the agricultural sector. Losses for crops like beans and sprouts for this year are estimated at 20 to 25 percent, and even 40 to 50 percent for certain species of potato. Compounding the issue is the fact that farmers use surface- or groundwater to irrigate their crops during dry spells, which further worsens the drought.
Moreover, during periods of drought the freshwater level is low, causing more seawater to flow inland. This influx of salt water not only reduces the available freshwater, but also causes salinisation in areas close to the coast. This is going to happen more often, as temperatures and sea levels climb further in the coming decades. In 2018, Dutch farmers’ income has decreased by 30 to 60 percent because of salinisation. As the current war in Ukraine has demonstrated, large-scale problems in the agricultural sector can have global consequences on the price and availability of food. Researchers that examined the connections between droughts and food production found European crop losses due to drought have tripled during 1991-2005 compared to 1964-1990. They also found drought-driven decreases of 9% in European cereal harvests, and predict that the losses will increase by 3% each year. Another study found these 9% losses to be about 2.5 to 3.8%. However large these losses are exactly, they are at the moment still relatively mild, considering the fact that European crop yields have increased by a staggering 146% over the past fifty years, because of countless innovations in the agricultural sector. Nevertheless, these drought-driven crop losses can become a real problem if we are not adequately prepared for them.
This video shows the expected crop losses in the coming 50 years, if carbon emissions are not sufficiently curbed. The predictions are based on current agricultural systems. Adaptation or technological advances can therefore still have a positive impact. Source: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3124/global-climate-change-impact-on-crops-expected-within-10-years-nasa-study-finds/ .
Another sector that is disrupted by periods of low water levels is the shipping industry. This sector depends on navigable rivers to transport the countless goods that are essential to our society. Low water levels means less cargo transported per ship, restrictions on where larger ships are allowed to sail, sluices that are only periodically and briefly opened to let ships through, and sometimes even one-way travel.
Less known than the damages to the agricultural and shipping sectors are the huge damages to buildings that droughts can bring. That is because drought causes the ground to shrink, which can collapse building foundations. It is estimated that there are around 1 million houses in the Netherlands that are vulnerable to collapse. Considering the misery that the people in the province of Groningen have been subjected to with regard to the building damage caused by natural gas extraction, one cannot help but wonder who is going to pay for all that damage. In order to avoid a repeat of the lawsuits, the parliamentary inquiries, and the huge dissatisfaction and stress that those citizens experienced, there needs to be a national policy in place before the problem reaches such magnitudes. With the ‘Klimaatschadeschatter’ (translated: ‘climate damage estimator’), a tool that combines knowledge on damages caused by climate change and creates estimates based on municipality, one can get a sense of how big the damage in the Netherlands could be (the uncertainties for the future are too large to see it as more than an indication).
Furthermore, droughts can be detrimental to our ecosystems. The longer the drought lasts, the more difficult it is for nature to bounce back. When soils dry out, plants die or become less resistant to disease. Additionally, both the soil and surface water can get contaminated, because rains and rivers no longer flush away pollutants. Poisonous organisms like blue-green algae flourish in dried-up waters, making them unsuitable or even dangerous to swim in. Droughts also increase the risk of wildfires. The image below shows wildfire sensitivity across the Netherlands. The most sensitive regions are roughly the same as those that have been most impacted by the ongoing drought.
Lastly, there are a great many more challenges that prolonged droughts create, not least of all the safeguarding of the drinking water supply. As was mentioned earlier, the lower the river level and the higher the sea level due to global warming, the more salt water flows inland. This leads to salinisation and endangers the drinking water supply. The risk of wildfires and the increased withering of plants are also concerning, considering the fact that climate change is a driver of more prolonged and more intense droughts. Wildfires release huge quantities of greenhouse gases, and less vegetation means less plants that can draw carbon from the air through photosynthesis.
In short, droughts can have far-reaching consequences on both humans and nature. The longer and the more intense a drought is, the bigger the problems that we will have to face. In all likelihood, there will be even more droughts in the future, so we will have to be well prepared in order to mitigate or prevent their deleterious effects as much as possible. How we can do this and which actions we are already taking during droughts, shall be the focus of the third and final article of this series.
Edited by Anne van Bergeijk.
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