From the Danube to the Loire, these lifelines for the continent’s economy are running low after five months of brutal drought and years of dry weather.
Scientists say that the economic cost of the rivers’ decimation is only part of the problem. The less water in the water system as a whole, explains Gabriel Singer, an ecologist at University of Innsbruck, Austria, the less dilution for salts and the slower a river flows. This leads to higher saline content and higher water temperatures, which can be lethal for many species of riverine life, such as Danube salmon, barbel, and European grayling, among many others.
Scientists say that millennia of engineering and human activity along Europe’s rivers have also played a role. The straightening of once-wild rivers, deforestation, damming, industrial pollution, wastewater discharges, and agriculture’s usurpation of shorelines and wetlands has made Europe’s rivers all the more susceptible to heat waves and low-water conditions, as well as floods.
Thus, the authorities’ reflex reaction—namely to dredge deeper—doesn’t address the essential problem, say Singer and Griebler. In fact, it exacerbates it.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
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