The water shortage in Germany and Europe as a whole has worsened in recent months, according to joint research by scientists from Potsdam, the US space agency NASA and the German Aerospace Center, DPA reported, quoted by BTA.
The results reinforce concerns that “water reserves will not recover by the end of the year even if more precipitation falls in the autumn than usual“, said a spokesman for the “Helmholtz“ Center for Geosciences in Potsdam.
The situation is probably even worse, as the currently available data, which cover the period up to June, do not reflect the heat waves in Germany this summer, the center said, which published some of the conclusions from satellite observations carried out together with its partners.
The effect of the heat waves that affected Germany and other European countries this summer will only be evident in the data for the following months, which are expected in the fall.
Scientists are monitoring the total amount of water on the Earth's surface and below it. These data allow us to see how water reserves are changing, the Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences says.
“Since 2015, we have been observing drier conditions in Germany compared to the previous 15 years,” said Annette Eicher, head of the centre's Global Geomonitoring and Gravity Field Division.
While the unusually wet 2024 led to some recovery in water reserves, a sharp decline followed immediately afterwards, the institute notes.