Climate change in Southern Europe
Man-made climate change is causing water to become scarce in southern Europe: An ETH study shows that the decline in freshwater resources there over recent decades is very likely linked to increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate change is leaving its mark. Water is becoming increasingly scarce in southern Europe. That is the conclusion of a study by researchers at ETH Zurich published in the journal Nature Climate Change. According to the study, the fact that it has already become drier in southern Europe is very likely related to greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting climate change.
The scientists led by Lukas Gudmundsson and Sonia Seneviratne from ETH compared data on runoff from several hundred small rivers over the period from 1956 to 2005 with climate model simulations. With these, they calculated how the water balance on land should have developed over this period with and without emissions from human activities.
Clear influence
"The simulations with emissions were much more similar to the actual observations than those that excluded human influence," Gudmundsson explained in an interview with the sda news agency. While the possibility that local water management such as irrigation or natural climate fluctuations contribute additionally cannot be ruled out, he said, they cannot explain the observed trends on their own.
"Climate models predict by the end of the century that as climate change progresses, southern Europe will become drier and northern Europe wetter," Gudmundsson said. "Our results add weight to these predictions: not only are these trends already visible, but they are demonstrably due to human influences."
Smart water management needed
Recommendations for local water management could not be derived because the study combined three large regions in Europe. For example, special circumstances such as the influence of glaciers on the water balance in Switzerland were not taken into account. However, it is clear that smart water management will be needed in the Mediterranean region in the future, says the ETH researcher.
In a next step, the scientists now want to expand their analysis and investigate the influence of climate change on the regional freshwater budget worldwide. (Source: sda)
