Increased economic drought impacts in Europe under climate change
While climate change will alter the distribution of water in time and space, quantifications of drought risk under global warming
remain uncertain. Here, we show that in Europe, drought damages could strongly increase with global warming and cause a
regional imbalance in future drought impacts. In the absence of climate action (4 °C in 2100 and no adaptation), annual drought
losses in the European Union and United Kingdom combined are projected to rise to more than €65 billion per year compared
with €9 billion per year currently, or two times larger when expressed relative to the size of the economy. Drought losses show
the strongest rise in southern and western parts of Europe, where drought conditions at 4 °C could reduce regional agriculture
economic output by 10%. With high warming, drought impacts will become a fraction of current impacts in northern and northeastern
regions. Keeping global warming well below 2 °C would avoid most impacts in affected regions.
NAUMANN Gustavo;
CAMMALLERI Carmelo;
MENTASCHI Lorenzo;
FEYEN Luc;
2021-09-02
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
JRC120238
1758-678X (online),
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01044-3,
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC120238,
10.1038/s41558-021-01044-3 (online),
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