Drought has eased since mid-June, falling to its lowest level since early 2022 in Europe and along the entire Mediterranean coast in early August, according to the latest European Drought Observatory (EDO) data analyzed by AFP.
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From August 1 to 10, 28% of European territory and the Middle East and African coasts of the Mediterranean Sea were affected by soil drought, which reached its lowest level since January 2022.
Last year, the drought was twice as severe (55.8%) at the same time.
Updated approximately every ten days, the European indicator is based on anomalies in precipitation, soil moisture and vegetation status by region and climate type. On the other hand, the groundwater table, which remains at an unusually low level in France, for example, is not taken into account.
If soil drought is less severe this year after an extremely dry 2022, recent data remains exceptional. The proportion of land affected by drought has very rarely fallen below the 30 percent mark since spring 2021. Between 2012, when EDO measurements began, and 2018, this threshold was very rarely reached.
At the beginning of August, the countries of Central Europe, which were badly affected at the beginning of summer, gradually recovered from their drought episode: 26% of the area was affected in Germany (vs. 96% at the peak) and 67% in Poland (vs. 95%) .
The same trend is also evident in France, where 21% of the country was affected in early August, up from 64% in early June.
At the beginning of the month, the most affected countries were Lithuania (84%), Armenia and Iceland (82%) and Estonia (76%).