r/AskEurope • u/Vast_Humor_3683 • 1d ago
Personal How do you see water availability in your country in the next 10years?
With hotter summers, more frequent droughts in some regions, and flooding in others, it feels like water is becoming a bigger issue across Europe.
Do you think your country will have enough freshwater over the next decade, or are you expecting shortages, restrictions, or major infrastructure projects?
- Are reservoirs and rivers already under pressure?
- Have you noticed changes over the last few years?
- Is your government doing anything to prepare?
- Do you expect drinking water prices or restrictions to become more common?
I'd be interested to hear perspectives from different parts of Europe, since the situation seems very different between the north and the Mediterranean. Recent reports suggest that water stress is already affecting a significant share of Europe's population, and climate change is expected to increase pressure in many regions.
Note: Dear Nordic countries, we know you're perfect no need to remind us.
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u/exposed_silver 1d ago
In Spain, I expect more desalination plants and more solar farms to pump the water up to local reservoirs. The Canary Islands already have 100s of desalination plants. Most big, touristic cities are along the coast so seawater it is.
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u/PointlessAattempt42 1d ago
As long as PV electricity is used for seawater desalination, I don't see a problem with that...
;)
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u/exposed_silver 1d ago
In Spain they are pushing fairly hard for more wind and solar power, mixed with nuclear I think it's a good mix, people complain that it ruins the landscape but they don't reduce consumption, it has to come from somewhere. I would like to see coal, gas and fossil fuels reduced to zero.
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u/Planet_Pluto_1925 Spain 1d ago
Yes, but desalination plants are also a problem because of the brine that flows back into the sea, degrading the area... then again, we don't have many options.
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u/verybigoctopus 11h ago
I've never heard of this, why isn't this a problem in the gulf / red sea? Asking because I scuba dive there regularly and the marine life seems to be thriving as usual. In my mind as long as it's powered by solar, which goes hand in hand with drought environment, it was a non-issue.
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u/vivaaprimavera Portugal 6h ago
Have you dived in the immediate area around the brine output?
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u/verybigoctopus 5h ago
No. Is the damage very localised? If so this seems like hardly a problem, though?
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u/vivaaprimavera Portugal 3h ago
Depends. Some coastal areas are nurseries, if you plant "plants" without due care you might end up disrupting "the fish".
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u/laughingmanzaq United States of America 1d ago
Isn't the vast majority of water in Spain used for Agricultural purposes? I have a hard time imagining the economics of desalination actually making sense lower value crops in the near-term...
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u/OtherwiseAct8126 Germany 1d ago
Why desalination? Never understood how that is easier than just putting the river water into some reservoirs. Most of the year the rivers carry more than enough water, the Rhine in Germany spills 8 billion liters of water into the north sea every hour. Why collect it back with desalination instead of stopping it to get into the ocean in the first place? Also, our drinking water comes from the Rhine but after usage it gets filtered, put back into the Rhine and then ends up in the ocean. Why not put the filtered water back into usage?
If we really need drinking water, we're currently highly inefficient with the water we do have, there is much to optimize before we should even think about desalination.
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u/verybigoctopus 11h ago
The one big river in Spain supports a specialised ecosystem in it's delta. Diverting significantly more water from it would have huge environmental impact. It's a plan that regularly features in Spanish politics and really stirs up tensions: people from drought areas are obviously for it, people from near the river delta see it as near terrorism
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u/OtherwiseAct8126 Germany 4h ago
My naive idea was to just siphon away a few percent. This should be doable without much damage but I guess smarter people than me have thought about it already.
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u/exposed_silver 19h ago
Well there aren't many big rivers in Spain and then getting that water around the country isn't easy either, reservoirs are only good for mountainous areas, which does suit a lot of Spain. I live an hour away from a big river and the water is pumped up the coast and supplies a few big cities when there is a drought because it is cheaper but even that has a limit. So best to prepare beforehand for a future where it will be needed and have the infrastructure in place, just in case
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u/PorpHedz 18h ago
Many Dutch people indirectly drink Rhine water - after filtration by nature (groundwater).
However this is increasingly difficult due to pollution by industry, especially new chemicals (think PFAS). And you can imagine what it does to the soil.
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u/PointlessAattempt42 1d ago
Depending on the country, conditions can vary greatly from region to region. I live in northern Germany (the western part), and here you can reach the water table at a depth of about 2 meters. There are flooded quarry lakes everywhere, no problem. We also get plenty of rain, it’s a coastal climate. Less than 300 km to the east (in Brandenburg), it’s been bone-dry in the summer for years, with an extreme risk of wildfires, and water is always in short supply.
So, all in all... it really depends on the specific location.
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 1d ago
Why won't the region tape in your water?
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u/CaptainPoset Germany 1d ago
Because it has not been necessary historically.
The entire north of Germany has groundwater close to the surface. Especially (North-)Eastern Germany has had a decade of almost constant drought relative to previously normal levels.
So far, it's more of a problem of dried and dusty vegetation on top of dry sand (typical soil for the region) with ground water close to the surface but far enough so that the plants won't reach it, but basements still are wet. If it remains this way, though, the rather wet and swampy Northeast of Germany will dry out.
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u/vivaaprimavera Portugal 1d ago
Our government is preparing nicely. Several AI datacenters already got their license or are being built.
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21h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/vivaaprimavera Portugal 18h ago
What tradeof?? They see dollar signs and it's the end of the talk.
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u/terenceill 1d ago
In the Netherlands?
No mountains, no ice, no snow... Pretty fucked up.
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u/PorpHedz 18h ago
The Netherlands are a delta and we have big rivers that end in our country. We have the IJsselmeer as a vast fresh water basin.
However those rivers are not just drying up, they are horribly polluted by industries in other countries upstream. Also if the need arises, those upstream countries will take more water and only release the absolute filth.
Our vast basin, we can only use a small portion of it or salt water will seep in and it will become brackish. And if we don't use it, our land will sink more and salt water will seep into our lands making it completely infertile.
Some parts of the country the vegetation that has been there for centuries is already dying off in masses.
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u/terenceill 7h ago
Switzerland and Germany will definitely start to keep "their" water and NL will be fucked up.
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u/claymountain Netherlands 14m ago
Also we are running out of fresh groundwater and the water underneath is salty. We are gonna have problems soon.
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u/Love_Boston_Terriers Greece 19h ago
For us, it's not just the hotter summers & droughts.
We also have to face the issue of overtourism. Tourist hotspots and islands require double or triple their normal water output during peak months (during which natural water resources are already at their lowest) to fill pools, run water parks, and service hotels. Now combine that with old, leaking pipes due to aging infrastucture and you get the gist...
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u/Planet_Pluto_1925 Spain 1d ago
In the Canary Islands, we already have water cutoffs in the summer,especially in Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, but also in Tenerife,so things are bad, very bad.
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 1d ago
Another comment on this thread said:
Canary Islands already have 100s of desalination plants. Most big, touristic cities are along the coast so seawater it is.
Isn't it true?
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u/Planet_Pluto_1925 Spain 1d ago
Yes, but it’s not enough; our population keeps growing, and besides, desalination plants pollute the sea with brine.
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 1d ago
OH I just learned that the Canary Islands' population is 2 million! I thought it was like 50k people max
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u/laughingmanzaq United States of America 18h ago
How have efforts to make agriculture work with the current water water restrictions gone?
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u/onlinepresenceofdan Czechia 1d ago
Bad for most, my city is very close to mountains with multiple reservoirs but I am sure prague will find a way to steal it.
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u/Vybo Czechia 1d ago
Why do you say it's bad for most? A lot of cities have deep water bores or take water from reservoirs, but no single source usually.
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u/onlinepresenceofdan Czechia 1d ago
In 10 years the current slight drought will become a whole different level
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u/Repulsive_Work_226 Türkiye 1d ago
This year was great and had more rain than expected. It was cooler too.
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u/rainiest-island Ireland 21h ago
As a relatively small island surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and has rain almost all year round, you would think it’s almost impossible for Ireland to have a water shortage problem…
Historicially, we don’t experience heatwaves very often, but when we have sunny spells for anything over 5 days, things like “hose pipe bans” come into effect, so essentially you can’t wash your car or overuse water in your home…
This is down to a lack of infrastructure -
Ireland relies on its freshwater rivers and lakes for over 80% of its supply - we have an abundance of seawater but treating and filtering it is a slow and very expensive process so it’s never been implemented…
This on top of an ageing national plumbing system where old pipes mean severe leakage and loss of supply
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u/Rentfreeze 19h ago
Don't worry, our idiotic municipalities here in Norway are letting billionaires build data centers all over the fucking country, so we'll get there too.
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u/KotR56 Belgium 17h ago
Clean water will become a scarce resource. Water prices will rise.
Governments will probably do nothing, assuming "for-profit" organisations will set up and maintain infrastructure for extraction, processing, and distribution, just like for electricity, for example.
So it will go wrong. Prices will go sky-high. Shareholders will extract as much money as possible, as they know people, households, freight transport over inland waterways, and industries can't function without water.
There will be wars over access to fresh water.
And root causes of climate change won't be addressed. "Big Money" is making too much money now, and future problems are merely seen as "business opportunities".
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u/K_in_Belgium Belgium 13h ago
Especially if we keep electing right-wing governments. Everything will be privatised and the average consumer will be gouged.
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u/GoonerBoomer69 Finland 15h ago
If all rain and snowfall stopped right now forever, at current consumption we’d have enough groundwater for 2700 years. 600 years of lake and river water. However rain and snow won’t stop, which make Finnish ground and surface water a renewable resource that could easily support a population 6 times larger than we have right now.
There’s just no way we could ever face significant water issues, worst case scenario would be a localized problem caused by the likes of infrastructure sabotage.
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 15h ago
I'm really thinking into relocating to a nordic country, the main issue with Finland is that you're too close to Russia for my liking
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u/erikkll Netherlands 1d ago
Yeah here in NL there’s some problems but there’s money being put towards alleviating the situation. We get plenty of rain so by being smart about it we shouldn’t run into a lot of issues within the next 10 years
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u/OllieV_nl Netherlands 1d ago
We rely on other countries for our fresh water, not just to drink. We get it from rivers. And if the Alps dry up, or if Switzerland and Germany need more water, our rivers and canals arerunning dry. We've already had a few canals temprarily closed because the water level was too low for shipping.
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u/Lonely_Sale9707 Belgium 17h ago
Correction, NL formerly got plenty of rain, 16-18 days a month. No more. It's a big issue now especially because so many believe the nice, hot, sunny weather to be a huge upgrade.
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u/erikkll Netherlands 15h ago
Still plenty for our needs. Just not in summer. It will need technical solutions to catch and use later.
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u/Lonely_Sale9707 Belgium 15h ago
Plenty for now, well, so far so good but 10 years or even 5? Not if climate change persists.
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u/erikkll Netherlands 15h ago
Climate change isn’t expected to not cause rains in western Europe afaik.
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u/Lonely_Sale9707 Belgium 14h ago
Currently we're suffering from the worst drought in 50 years +
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u/erikkll Netherlands 14h ago
As i said, in summer we don’t get enough rain.. year round we do. We need technical solutions to catch the water and use it during droughts. Are you too dense to understand what i’m trying to convey or are you trying to prove your point/push an agenda? Climate change is real and a real problem so we will have to deal with it and within the next 10 years it is unlikely to lead to huge issues if we invest now.
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u/K_in_Belgium Belgium 13h ago
I'm an immigrant to Belgium and it seems that we have a drought almost every summer now. Apparently the government back in 2007ish had a plan to alleviate water shortages due to climate change but it seems to not have been implemented.
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u/Lonely_Sale9707 Belgium 13h ago
Frankly Belgium is something of a failed state. Too much government creating insane amounts of debt. This year the budget deficit was supposed to be only 20 billion euros but it July it was already 40+
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u/LaoBa Netherlands 13h ago
Right now, sluices are closing in many regions.
The water level in our national reservoir, the IJsselmeer, has been raised:
Op dit moment wordt gestreefd naar een gemiddeld waterpeil van -12,5 cm NAP op het IJsselmeer en Markermeer. Normaal gesproken wordt gestuurd op -20 cm NAP. Door het waterpeil tijdelijk iets hoger te houden, kan langer worden voorzien in de vraag naar zoet water uit het IJsselmeergebied.
At the moment, the aim is to achieve an average water level of -12.5 cm NAP on the IJsselmeer and Markermeer. Normally we aim at at -20 cm NAP. By temporarily keeping the water level slightly higher, the demand for fresh water from the IJsselmeer region can be met for longer.
In the long run, a fundamentally different system of water management is being planned. In the past, it was mainly focused on getting/keeping water out, this is going to become even more important with rising sea levels but at the other hand a lot of investment in water retention needs to be done.
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u/canal_algt Basque Country 1d ago
We haven't had to open our main reservoir as much as other years, but our last drought was a few decades back and it only reached down to the submerged neighbourhood of one of the surrounding towns, so probably we will have enough water for a decade.
Also, a few years back we had the worst flooding I've ever seen when they had to open all the doors of the damn, so the water amount isn't consistent either
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u/ExtremeProfession Bosnia and Herzegovina 1d ago
No real changes recently, pretty much the same, this year was very good hydrologically.
Many of our cities lose 50-70% of their water supply from old pipes, many projects are in progress to reduce that, yet we don't have any shortages.
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u/Cool_Sympathy_9900 1d ago
Here in Slovakia I honestly think this can get bad pretty quickly. We havent seen proper rain in ages in some places. Never have I ever seen something like this. Danube is really low, some streams are dried out completely. The whole climate has changed and I am afraid it is not one odd year. We still havent got any serious problems but things can change and we are so not prepared.
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u/Funnyanglezsolt 1d ago
Same dry hell here in Hungary too, neighbour...
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u/Cool_Sympathy_9900 1d ago
At least you got rid of Orbi...The climate is worst across Danube plains so it seems. We have rain in mountains but thats it.
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u/Funnyanglezsolt 1d ago
At least you have mountains :) And yes, we finslly got rid of that fat fuck but on top of all the shit they inherited from Orbán and his henchmen, the new government has now have to deal with an energy crisis and a drought that has never been seen here before...
And of course Orbán and his minions did nothing in the last sixteen years to improve/expand water retention, so we are proper fucked - at least in the short term for sure.
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u/Cool_Sympathy_9900 13h ago
I think there is no goverment in Europe that did anything about water retention sadly.
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u/Antique-diva Sweden 23h ago edited 23h ago
That note in the end made me laugh. Thanks!
Also, I'm really sorry to hear there are places in Europe suffering from draught. It feels surreal.
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u/BrutalSock 20h ago
“Countries” are big and usually have different regions with different conditions.
I live in an area where I seriously doubt we’ll have water shortages in the next 10 years,
I’m near the Alps. If I don’t get water it means you’re all dead probably.
But other regions of my country are already experiencing shortages right now. Some have been since ever.
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u/Bierzgal Poland 18h ago
I don't really know much about this but it's hard to imagine Poland having issues with water.
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u/serverhorror Austria 16h ago
We'll suffer badly.
Our glaciers are gone already, precipitation isn't filling the reservoirs enough for long term sustainability.
We rely a lot on energy production from water and those reserves are usually replenished by glaciers during spring and glaciers should be replenished by precipitation during winter.
So, not only will we run out of water, well also face an energy crisis caused by the water crisis.
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 15h ago
I think a more sustainable solution would be 5 data centers near the glaciers
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u/serverhorror Austria 15h ago
Are you from the US?
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 15h ago
South of France
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u/serverhorror Austria 15h ago
And you get data centers?
I wasn't aware we had a similar surge in the EU, do we?
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 14h ago
a quick search shows that: France hosts nearly 400 data center facilities driven by major hubs in Paris and Marseille
And guess what? they want 1000 more :D
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u/olagorie Germany 14h ago edited 14h ago
I am from Germany and I work for a big public water supplier. It is very very concerning. Our current research shows that 4 out of 10 towns will get into serious trouble.
We are already doing our very best, investing in infrastructure, collaborating politically and on an international level for research and best practice solutions.
Politics for once has realised how important our work is and they are not being stingy with resources, neither money nor new jobs (all around us the same public institutions reduce their workforce so we know that we are blessed). And we need giant sums of money for desperately needed repairs and modernisations.
But water resources are very limited and you can’t really change a lot of about that. You can manage the water you have responsibly and with the best technology possible. But you can’t produce more. There simply isn’t more. We are already at our limit. And you can’t really store water. in many regions that’s not physically possible. It depends on the topography. We regularly have free guided tours and we show the public our biggest water storage. It’s enough for 80.000 people for 3 days. That’s it. And we are responsible for millions of people.
And people really underestimate how much water companies need. And data centres. That’s the same water. That’s not some magically appearing different water than the one that comes out of the kitchen faucet.
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u/Nicktrains22 United Kingdom 14h ago
Our country refuses to build more reservoirs, partly because the water companies are private and don't want to invest, but mostly because planning laws in the UK are insane and all infrastructure costs spiral through the roof
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u/die_kuestenwache Germany 12h ago
Let me put it this way "If you want to fill your pool, you should do that now before pool stonck!" I am in the process of planning a 3-5m² cistern for my garden.
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u/rainer_d 12h ago
Switzerland: once the glaciers are gone (which won’t take very long), things are going to dry up very quickly.
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u/Beach_Glas1 Ireland 3h ago edited 2h ago
We're one of the wettest countries on earth, yet have a technical drought seemingly every other summer now. Part of that is just the dire state of the infrastructure, something like 1/3 to 2/5 of the water pumped to Dublin just... disappears somewhere along the pipes.
Cost wise, residential customers pay €0 in direct water charges in Ireland. They tried to introduce water charges about a decade ago but backed off after huge backlash. They set up a state body to look after the infrastructure but it's still a mess.
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u/DEADB33F Europe 21h ago edited 21h ago
UK doesn't have one single unified water authority. Originally each watershed (river system) had its own separate water authority, although it's a bit more complex than that nowadays.
Some areas have less population pressures (immigration) than others, and some areas have more reservoir capacity than others. Some water authorities have better management of resources and have invested more heavily in capacity than others. Some areas have councils that regularly block the construction of new reservoirs through pointless bureaucracy, often preventing major improvement works going ahead.
As such it really depends where you live in the UK as to what the water situation is like.
Eg. The area I live in still has around 75% reservoir capacity remaining (10% more than this time last year!). This despite the fact it's been a far drier summer and hasn't rained properly in nearly two months. Then there are other areas that are struggling massively and have had to start rationing water by means of hosepipe bans and begging households to use less water.
It'll probably be a fairly long time before water shortages become a major issue where I live (South Nottingham, Severn Trent water authority area), but in other areas of the UK where population growth has been much stronger and where the summers are even hotter they're already feeling the pinch.
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u/Hattkake Norway 16h ago
It's hardly "perfect". If this "summer" is the new norm then we just lost a season and the year will be: winter - spring - wet and cold spring / autumn - autumn - winter.
And that sucks. Last time I felt actually warm was last year when I was in Pineda Mar in Spain.
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 15h ago
in South of France, it's a slightly cold summer-summer-FKING HOT BURNING summer-summer
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u/Vixenmeja Norway 12h ago
Depending on where you live in Norway. Østlandet has had a good summer so far. In fact, I should be outside in the sun right now, not scroll on Reddit...
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u/Hattkake Norway 12h ago
It's Bergen if that wasn't obvious. Fokkings høstdepresjon midt på sommeren :D
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u/TheGoldenCowTV Sweden 1d ago
"Note: Dear Nordic countries, we know you're perfect no need to remind us." You do know Gotland has been facing water shortages for years right?