Revisiting the recent European droughts from a long-term perspective.

Area of Science:

• Hydrology
• Climate Science
• Environmental Science

Background:

• Early 21st-century European droughts are widely considered exceptionally severe.
• These events impacted socio-economic sectors due to heatwaves, increased temperatures, and low precipitation.
• Drought affected the hydrological cycle, causing low runoff and soil moisture deficits.

Purpose of the Study:

• To reassess the extremity of recent European droughts (2003, 2015) within a 250-year context.
• To analyze meteorological, agricultural, and hydrological drought types.
• To investigate long-term trends in soil moisture and agricultural drought frequency.

Main Methods:

• Reconstruction of drought events over the past 250 years.
• Analysis of precipitation deficits during vegetation periods.
• Concurrent investigation of meteorological, agricultural, and hydrological drought.

Main Results:

• The 2003 and 2015 droughts, while significant for precipitation deficits, were not unprecedented in spatial extent or severity on a long-term scale.
• Concurrent analysis of three drought types revealed less uncommon long-term severity.
• Unprecedented drying trends in soil moisture and increased agricultural drought frequency were observed, linked to high temperatures.

Conclusions:

• Recent European droughts are not as extreme as commonly thought when viewed in a long-term historical context.
• Persistent drying trends in soil moisture and increased agricultural drought frequency are significant concerns.
• Future extreme meteorological droughts combined with decreasing soil moisture pose risks to Europe.