Lessons from the 2018–2019 European droughts: A collective need for unifying drought risk management

Abstract

Abstract. Drought events and their impacts vary spatially and temporally due to diverse pedo-climatic and hydrologic conditions, as well as variations in exposure and vulnerability, such as demographics and response actions. While hazardous severity and frequency of past drought events have been studied in detail, little is known about the effect of drought management strategies on the actual impacts, and how the hazard is perceived by relevant stakeholders for inducing action. In a continental study, we characterised and assessed the impacts and the perceptions of two recent drought events (2018 and 2019) in Europe and examined the relationship between management strategies and drought perception, hazard and impacts. The study was based on a pan-European survey involving national representatives from 28 countries and relevant stakeholders responding to a standard questionnaire. The survey focused on collecting information on stakeholders’ perceptions of drought, impacts on water resources and beyond, water availability and current drought management strategies at national and regional scales. The survey results were compared with the actual drought hazard information registered by the European Drought Observatory (EDO) for 2018 and 2019. The results highlighted high diversity in drought perceptions across different countries and in values of implemented drought management strategies to alleviate impacts by increasing national and sub-national awareness and resilience. The study concludes with an urgent need to further reduce drought impacts by constructing and implementing a European macro-level drought governance approach, such as a directive, which would strengthen national drought management and lessen harm to human and natural potentials.

Drought hazards and stakeholder perception: Unraveling the interlinkages between drought severity, perceived impacts, preparedness and management

“…Therefore, Quiring (2009) recommends the development of objective methods for establishing operational drought definitions. However, creating a universally formalized definition of drought that applies to all municipalities and sectors in Sweden may be challenging (Lloyd-Hughes 2014), especially because different policies and authorities govern different sectors (Blauhut et al 2021). Instead, Lloyd-Hughes (2014) argues for local drought definitions that holistically consider water supply, demand, and management.…”

“…While 2018 experienced a classical rainfall-deficit drought that was further exacerbated by a heatwave with high evaporation rates during the summer months (Van Loon and Van Lanen 2012), the 2017 drought was rather a long-term consequence of low ground-and surface water levels that started to emerge already in 2016, and which did not recover in the winter of 2016/2017 due to unusually warm winter temperatures and less than normal winter precipitation (Stensen et al 2019). Such differences in drought typologies, spatial extent, and severity levels across different drought events are common as drought emergence strongly depends on large-scale weather patterns and regional differences in land-surface properties (Blauhut et al 2021;Kingston et al 2015).…”

Drought hazards and stakeholder perception: Unraveling the interlinkages between drought severity, perceived impacts, preparedness, and management

“…Therefore, Quiring ( 2009 ) recommends the development of objective methods for establishing operational drought definitions. However, creating a universally formalized definition of drought that applies to all municipalities and sectors in Sweden may be challenging (Lloyd-Hughes 2014 ), especially because different policies and authorities govern different sectors (Blauhut et al 2021 ). Instead, Lloyd-Hughes ( 2014 ) argues for local drought definitions that holistically consider water supply, demand, and management.…”

“…While 2018 experienced a classical rainfall-deficit drought that was further exacerbated by a heatwave with high evaporation rates during the summer months (Van Loon and Van Lanen 2012 ), the 2017 drought was rather a long-term consequence of low ground- and surface water levels that started to emerge already in 2016, and which did not recover in the winter of 2016/2017 due to unusually warm winter temperatures and less than normal winter precipitation (Stensen et al 2019 ). Such differences in drought typologies, spatial extent, and severity levels across different drought events are common as drought emergence strongly depends on large-scale weather patterns and regional differences in land-surface properties (Blauhut et al 2021 ; Kingston et al 2015 ).…”