This is Paris. Today, we are going to talk about the drought. Europe is currently drying up severely. Even here in Paris, it is hard to remember when we last saw proper rain. Crops are withering away due to an immediate shortage of usable water. France is no exception, and I went out last week to see just how severe the situation is.
1. Cornfields Split Open: "Everything Is Burned Up"
What you are looking at now is a cornfield in central France. Wheat farming has ended here, and corn farming is in full swing. However, the fields are split wide open. The cracks were deep enough for two fingers to slide right in. There is no way the corn can form proper kernels. Very few have grown, and most of those are dried up. France forecasts that its corn harvest this year will hit a record low.
I also met a dairy farmer, and the situation here was just as severe. The field you see now used to be a pasture for cattle. It was a grazing grassland, but the grass has completely disappeared due to the drought. The farmer described it as being completely burned up, saying there is no food left at all. As a result, they have no choice but to feed the cattle stored feed. The problem, however, is that this is winter feed. Cattle are kept indoors during the cold winter when there is no grass, and they are now feeding them that reserve ahead of time. That is also running dangerously low. The farmer said that if the drought continues, they will have no choice but to use the straw stockpiled as bedding for the cattle barn as a last resort. They are essentially forced to use the bedding meant for cattle as food.
[Philippe / French Livestock Farmer: Nearly 70 to 80 percent of livestock farms in France are facing a serious shortage of feed as grass has disappeared from the pastures. We are having to use up the hay meant for the winter in advance, so our stockpiles are running low.]
Even so, this farm is relatively well-prepared and is managing to get by with feed. However, 70 to 80 percent of farms in France are suffering from feed shortages. All of this is due to a lack of water.
2. "Never Seen Anything Like This": 43% of Rivers Dried Up
So, I visited the Loire River. The Loire is the longest river in France. Unlike other European rivers, it is a natural river without dams or built-up embankments for canals, meaning the impact of the drought shows immediately. Water was still flowing, but the volume had halved in just a month. As a result, the riverbed was exposed in various places, and tour boats that used to cruise the river have stopped operating. I met the owner of the tour boat operation. He told me that while water levels typically drop in August, making operations difficult, they had to shut down nearly a month earlier this year. The drought has arrived much earlier and more severely. He also mentioned that he had never seen the water level drop this low before.
[Denis Rimbaud / Tour Boat Operator: Actually, operating tour boats is practically impossible this year. This is truly an unprecedented event. A drought like this is truly record-breaking.]
I also visited a spot where swimming was previously prohibited due to deep water and strong currents. Even after walking far into the riverbed, the water barely reached below my knees. France has a little over 3,000 rivers. However, more than 1,300 of those rivers have completely dried up or seen their water paths cut off. This phenomenon is known as river dry-up, and the French government has announced that 43 percent of rivers have become dry riverbeds.
With the situation as dire as it is, a state of alert has been issued. France manages water through a three-stage system when water shortages occur. The most severe danger level among them is the crisis stage, and when designated as such, water use is heavily restricted. Except for absolute essentials such as drinking water, sanitation, and medical use, even agricultural water use is restricted. France has administrative units similar to provinces that are called departments, or départements in French. There are 96 such départements in metropolitan France. Among those 96, 67 départements have been placed under crisis alerts. Not every single part of these départements is designated, but rather parts within these provinces have received crisis warnings, showing just how severely the drought has spread across all of France.
3. "Cracks Are Forming in My House... What Should I Do?"
The problem is that this does not simply end with a water shortage. When I visited a village in central France, the local government was receiving resident reports regarding building cracks caused by the drought.
[Aurore Caro / Mayor of Meung-sur-Loire: Our residents are currently in a state of high agitation. Inquiries flooding into our city hall ask, "Cracks are forming in my house right now, what should I do?"]
When asked what this has to do with the drought, it was explained that in towns built by filling in areas like riverbanks or wetlands, the ground is made of clay rather than bedrock. The severe underground drought has dried out the earth deeply beneath the surface, causing the ground to shrink. This has led to structural cracks in houses, and the village even saw severe cracking in its city hall building, prompting the local government to apply for a disaster area designation from the central government.
4. Nuclear Plants Halted and Night Views Disappeared
One of the most serious impacts of this drought is the energy crisis. Nuclear power generation is particularly problematic, as many European countries use river water as cooling water for their reactors. Not only is the lack of water an issue, but the continuous heatwaves exceeding 40 degrees Celsius have also warmed the river water. This means not only is cooling water scarce, but even the available water lacks cooling capacity. Consequently, France has halted operations at two nuclear power plants, while quite a few others have reduced their output. The amount of reduced electricity production from nuclear plants right now has hit an all-time high, and it is highly likely to increase further.
Even so, France is still holding on because it has nearly 60 reactors across 20 sites. However, Eastern European countries using water from the Danube River are facing a much more severe situation. Hungary has four nuclear reactors in the country, which account for more than half of its national electricity production. Three of those four reactors have already been shut down, while the remaining one is barely maintaining operations at a reduced output. Neighboring Romania is in an even worse state: one of its two nuclear power plants has completely shut down, and the other is on the verge of a shutdown. Things were so urgent that they had to carry out underwater explosions to clear a water path to the nuclear plant because of insufficient water flow. Bedrock underwater, which normally posed no issues, ended up blocking the waterway like a dam as the water volume dropped sharply. As a result, they had to mobilize 180 kilograms of explosives to break it apart.
Because power plants cannot be operated properly, electricity for public facilities is being cut first. Consequently, the night views that symbolize the Hungarian capital of Budapest have disappeared. Romania has also declared a state of emergency and turned off all lighting except for essentials. In the UK, half of the England region is under drought conditions, with this summer's precipitation amounting to only 7 percent of normal years. While there are no immediate power restriction measures, the UK has suspended electricity exports to countries like the Netherlands.
The problem is that Europe's heatwaves and droughts this year, evaluated as the worst in history, have not yet ended. Another heatwave is hitting France this week. Projections show that this year's GDP of the European Union will drop by 1 percent, or approximately 295 trillion won, due to the heatwaves and droughts. Europe is already facing a situation where there are plenty of places to spend money, but sources of revenue are shrinking. To make matters worse, even the weather is not cooperating with Europe.
(Reported by Kwon Yeongin | Produced by Shin Heesuk | Video by Kim Sinae | Video Editing by Na Honghee | Design by Lee Sumin | Produced by SBS Digital News)
※
Copying, redistribution, and unauthorized use in AI training are strictly prohibited.