China News Service, July 18. According to Agence France-Presse, on the 18th local time, researchers from the European Commission issued a warning that nearly half of the EU territory is currently at risk of drought.
In a July report, the European Commission's Joint Research Centre said 46% of the EU's territory was in warning-level drought and 11% was at alert level, with crops already suffering from water shortages.
Italy is currently the worst hit, with the Po River basin in the north facing the worst drought.
In Spain, current reservoir storage is 31 percent below the 10-year average; in Portugal, the amount of water used for hydropower generation is only half the average of the past seven years.
The lack of water and high temperatures will lead to lower crop yields in France, Romania, Spain, Portugal and Italy, researchers in the European Union have warned.
According to previous reports, Spain, the United Kingdom, France and other European countries have encountered extreme high temperatures recently. The highest temperature in Portugal reached 47 degrees Celsius, and more than 200 people died in the high temperature weather within a week; Spain and France continued to have high temperatures and caused forest fires in many places; The United Kingdom issued an abnormally high temperature Red alert, declaring a "national emergency".