Global warming and drought impacts in the EU

• DOI: 10.2760/597045
• Publication Date: 2020-01-01
• Authors: Carmelo Cammalleri; Gustavo Naumann; Lorenzo Mentaschi; Giuseppe Formetta; Forzieri Giovanni; Gosling Simon; Bisselink Bernard; De Roo Arie; Luc Feyen

Droughts induce a complex web of impacts that span many sectors of the economy, as exemplified by extensive crop failure, reduced power supply, and shipping interruptions in the EU during 2018 and 2019. With global warming droughts will happen more frequent, last longer and become more intense in southern and western parts of Europe, while drought conditions will become less extreme in northern and north-eastern Europe. With 3°C global warming in 2100 drought losses could be 5 times higher compared to today, with the strongest increase in drought losses projected in the Mediterranean and Atlantic regions of Europe. When expressed with respect to the total size of the economy the effects are dampened relatively, because drought-sensitive sectors like agriculture are projected to become relatively less economically prevalent in future EU economies than they are nowadays. The consequences on ecosystems are typically not monetized and hence are not reflected in the loss estimates.<br/>JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Management<br/>