Hrvatske vode, Vol. 32 No. 130, 2024.
Review article
Analyses of low water levels and their consequences in the 2021-2023 period
Dušan Trninić
; Državni hidrometeorološki zavod, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
The extreme droughts that occurred in the 2021-2023 period caused extremely low water levels in some parts of Europe and the world. The snow cover in the Alps, which is of key importance for water levels in large rivers, such as the Po, Rhine, Danube or Rhone, was significantly below the average. In addition, the glacier mass was reduced to alarming levels. According to detailed analyses of climate fluctuations and climate change, Alpine glaciers have lost about 60% of their mass since 1850. Driven by climate fluctuations and climate change, unusually dry winters and springs accompanied by record high air temperatures (series of sequential heat waves), lack of precipitation in the form of snow and rain and low groundwater levels led to a situation where some rivers and reservoirs in Western, Central and Southern Europe had low or extremely low water levels and were overheated above average, with consequential meteorological, hydrological, agrometeorological, geological, financial and other “droughts”. These causes of droughts and low water levels resulted in a more or less direct and indirect damages in agriculture, energy (H, T and N power plants), river and canal transport, water and wastewater, tourism and many other activities. It is interesting to mention that the Po River flows into the Adriatic Sea, the Rhine into the North Sea, the Danube into the Black Sea and the Rhone into the Mediterranean Sea. Hydrological droughts in the Yangtze river basin in the Central part of the People's Republic of China are described in detail, since they are particularly interesting due to specific measures for reducing direct and indirect damages caused by droughts that are increasingly affecting human lives and economies. Some measures for reducing damages from low water levels are individually mentioned (reservoirs as key facilities for solving water management and environmental problems, possibilities and needs for transferring water from basin to basin and retaining water both temporally and spatially). The messages about catastrophic droughts and floods carved in stone and different artefacts by people from previous eras provide a unique reminder of the difficulties they faced during droughts and floods. In conclusion, water must be conserved to the maximum possible extent and at all levels.
Keywords
draughts; low water levels; periods of low water levels; snow; reservoirs; damages; conserving water
Hrčak ID:
334255
URI
Publication date:
30.1.2025.
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