Drought impact on ecosystems in Europe (8th EAP)

The indicator is a headline indicator for monitoring progress towards the 8th Environment Action Programme. It contributes mainly to monitoring aspects of the 8th EAP priority objective Article 2.2.b that shall be met by 2030: ‘continuous progress in enhancing and mainstreaming adaptive capacity, including on the basis of ecosystem approaches, strengthening resilience and adaptation and reducing the vulnerability of the environment, society and all sectors of the economy to climate change, while improving prevention of, and preparedness for, weather- and climate-related disasters’ (EU,2022). More specifically, and in accordance with the European Commission Communication on the 8th EAP monitoring the indicator assesses whether the EU will ‘decrease the area impacted by drought and loss of vegetation productivity’ by 2030, (EC, 2022).

Justification for indicator selection

Droughts are extreme climate events that are induced by temporary water deficits and may be related to a lack of precipitation, soil moisture, streamflow or any combination of the three taking place at the same time. Droughts differ from other extreme natural events in several ways. First, unlike earthquakes, floods or tsunamis, which occur along generally well-defined fault lines, river valleys or coastlines, droughts can occur anywhere (with the exception of permanent snow cover or desert regions, where conditions such as drought do not occur). Second, on one hand droughts are extreme events which can occur several times within a year causing strong and contemporary impact on the ecosystems. On the other hand droughts can also develop gradually, resulting from a prolonged period (from months to years) of water supply conditions that are below average at a specific location.

Droughts can occur in most parts of the world, even in wet and humid regions, and can have profound impacts on agriculture, industry, tourism and ecosystems and the services they provide. For example, in arid and semi-arid ecosystems (including the Mediterranean regions), limited water availability is a recurrent phenomenon and governs plant growth and phenology. On the other hand, in temperate, boreal and tropical ecosystems, sporadic prolonged dry periods can lead to water-limited conditions and have far-reaching impacts on ecosystems’ carbon balance and structure. The immediate impacts of droughts within the growing season (i.e. a few weeks in duration) are, for example, declines in crop production, poor pasture growth and declines in fodder supplies from crop residues. Prolonged water shortages (e.g. of several months or years in duration) may, among other things, lead to a reduction in hydro-electric production and potentially to increase wildfire occurrences.

The monitoring and assessment of drought impacts are complex because different types of impacts vary in their severity and often vary depending on the different phases of the given drought event. Therefore, most empirical studies of drought impacts have focused on agricultural crop production, which is direct, immediately observable, well understood and easy to quantify. Reports on drought impacts in the category ‘terrestrial ecosystems’ were found for a only few years and are limited in number in the European Drought Impact Report Inventory (EDII) database (Stahl et al., 2016). This is consistent with the earlier conclusions of Lackstrom et al. 2013, who claim that there is a lack of data on and understanding of the impacts of droughts on sectors other than agriculture and water resources.

Hence, due to a lack of records of direct impacts of drought on ecosystems, a proxy for ecosystems condition is needed. Differences in the physiological response of vegetation to water deficits cause differences in the sensitivity and resilience of terrestrial ecosystems to drought, and ultimately influence the types of impacts that droughts have, i.e. impacts that slow growth or reduce greenness, that lead to loss of biomass or that result in plant mortality. Consequently, significant changes in vegetation productivity provide an indication/early warning of imminent, irreversible impacts on ecosystems’ equilibrium states. Furthermore, by requiring the reduction in vegetation productivity to coincide with a negative soil moisture anomaly, the likelihood of other phenomena than drought being the cause of the reduced vegetation productivity is reduced.

Results from the dashboard:

Long term average (2000-2020) drought impact in forests was largest in Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta and Portugal (dashboard), with up to 8% of forests affected annually. In 2021 in the EU, only forests in Finland and Sweden were affected more than the 2000-2020 average. Among the non-EU countries, forests in Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Norway and Türkiye showed higher than average impact. The 2000-2020 average drought impact in croplands was highest in Cyprus, Luxemburg and Malta (9% of the croplands impacted annually). In Cyprus, Finland and Greece the 2021 drought impact in croplands was higher than the average of the previous years whereas in the non-EU countries crops in Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Norway and Türkiye were affected more than the previous years. The 2000-2020 average impact on grasslands was highest in Cyprus, Estonia, Lithuania and Luxembourg (annually up to 10% of grasslands impacted). In the EU the 2021 impact on grasslands was only in Finland and Sweden higher than the 2000-2020 annual average impact, whereas in non-EU countries the 2021 impact on grasslands exceeded the annual average in Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Norway and Türkiye. Although drought impacts on wetlands affected less than 0.25% of each country’s wetland area, these impacts are significant, as wetlands are very important for biodiversity and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

In the beginning of the century drought impact mostly occurred in South, South-East and Continental Europe. In the last decade countries in the Atlantic region (e.g. the Benelux states), in the Baltic region and in Scandinavia also experienced strong drought impact on increasingly large areas. Exceptional drought impacts in the EU-27 region occurred in 2005 in Portugal, in 2006 in Estonia, in 2014 in Cyprus, in 2016 in Malta, in 2019 in Lithuania and in 2020 in Luxembourg, where drought impacted around or above 50% of the country´s area.

Context description

In May 2020, the EU adopted a biodiversity strategy for 2030 (COM(2020) 380 final), related to protecting and restoring nature. The strategy states that the ‘biodiversity crisis and the climate crisis are intrinsically linked. For the EU, the cost of not reaching the 2020 biodiversity strategy headline target of halting the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services has been estimated at EUR50 billion per year. In addition to these economic costs, loss of biodiversity means that ecosystems and the societies that rely upon them are more fragile and less resilient in the face of challenges such as climate change, pollution and habitat destruction. Droughts have an impact on several land and soil functions, as well as ecosystem services, in both urban and rural areas. By putting pressure on natural ecosystems, droughts hampered the achievement of the EU biodiversity strategy’s 2020 objectives.

Climate change accelerates the loss of biodiversity through droughts, flooding and wildfires, while the loss and unsustainable use of nature in turn also contribute to climate change’. The new EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change (COM(2021) 82 final) shows the importance of healthy soils in minimising impacts of floods and droughts. The new Soil Strategy for 2030 (COM(2021) 699 final) points out the crucial and urgent need to address the human caused impacts on soils due to climate change and it calls for the same level of protection for soils that is given to air and water. Therefore, the Committee strongly recommends to integrate in the new EU Soil Strategy actions against erosion and desertification linked to extreme floods, droughts and fires. Climate change impacts is also reflected in the proposal for a nature restoration law, adopted in June 2022 by the European Commission, that aims to put all natural and seminatural ecosystems on the path to recovery by 2030. Droughts negatively affect agricultural ecosystems, the resilience of forest ecosystems and in urban ecosystems droughts indirectly affect the ability of green urban spaces to protect people against heatwaves. In particular, the impacts of extended droughts on ecosystems need to be assessed because they can lead to significant loss of vegetation productivity and irreversible damage to the condition of ecosystems and land degradation, in extreme cases desertification.

Drought pressures on natural ecosystems also play an important role in the EU’s ability to implement its strategy on green infrastructure (GI). In contrast to the most common ‘grey’ (human-made, constructed) infrastructure approaches that serve one single objective, GI promotes multifunctionality, which means that the same area of land is able to perform several functions and offer multiple benefits if its ecosystems are in a healthy state. More specifically, GI aims to enhance nature's ability to deliver multiple valuable ecosystem goods and services, potentially providing a wide range of environmental, social, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and biodiversity benefits. Droughts diminish the normal condition of ecosystems and their capacity to provide services that could be integrated into GI.

The EU legislation for LULUCF as part of the 2030 climate target sets clear targets for the LULUCF sector for each Member States. The capacity of forests and other land uses to store and remove carbon from the atmosphere will depend on management as well as a number of natural circumstances, such as variations in growing conditions (soil quality, temperature, precipitation and droughts) and frequency of natural disturbances (storms and fires). The regulation provides some flexibility for Member States to compensate excess emissions due a changing climate including natural disturbances that are beyond their control and cause significant emissions. To apply these flexibilities there is a need for spatial explicit information on the long-term impact of climate change resulting in excess emissions or diminishing sinks that are beyond their control or the effects of an exceptionally high proportion of organic soils in the managed land area, including information such as aridity, mean temperatures, mean precipitations, frost days, the duration of methodological or soil moisture droughts. The accounting for natural disturbances is following a statistical approach where Member States need to provide information on the type of natural disturbance and how they have been accounted for since 2001 to 2020 and some more information. Accounting for natural disturbances has been foreseen for forests only for the 2021-2025 reporting period, whereas the new LULUCF regulation foresees application to land land uses. The drought impact indicator can be used to confirm submitted MSs data when natural disturbances are reported especially from 2026 on when natural disturbances can be accounted for on all impacted lands.

The role of the common agricultural policy (CAP) is to provide a policy framework that supports and encourages producers to address economic, environmental (i.e. relating to resource efficiency, soil and water quality, and threats to habitats and biodiversity) and territorial challenges, while remaining coherent with other EU policies. This translates into three long-term CAP objectives: (1) viable food production, (2) sustainable management of natural resources and climate action, and (3) balanced territorial development. Given the pressure that droughts put on natural resources, agriculture’s environmental performance has to improve through more sustainable production methods. Farmers also have to adapt to challenges stemming from changes to the climate by pursuing climate change mitigation and adaption actions.

Targets

No specific targets.

Related policy documents

• Climate-ADAPT: Adaptation in EU policy sectors. Overview of EU sector policies in which mainstreaming of adaptation to climate change is ongoing or explored.
• Climate-ADAPT: Country profiles. Overview of activities of EEA member countries in preparing, developing and implementing adaptation strategies.
• Decision No 1386/2013/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 November 2013 on a General Union Environment Action Programme to 2020 ‘Living well, within the limits of our planet’. Published: 2013-11-20 Corporate author(s): Council of the European Union, European Parliament Subject: biodiversity , economic growth, environmental impact , environmental protection, EU programme, investment , management of resources , pollution control.
• EU 2020 Biodiversity Strategy. In the Communication: Our life insurance, our natural capital: an EU biodiversity strategy to 2020 (COM(2011) 244) the European Commission has adopted a new strategy to halt the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the EU by 2020. There are six main targets, and 20 actions to help Europe reach its goal. The six targets cover: full implementation of EU nature legislation to protect biodiversity; better protection for ecosystems, and more use of green infrastructure; more sustainable agriculture and forestry; better management of fish stocks; tighter controls on invasive alien species; a bigger EU contribution to averting global biodiversity loss.
• EU Adaptation Strategy Package. In April 2013, the European Commission adopted an EU strategy on adaptation to climate change, which has been welcomed by the EU Member States. The strategy aims to make Europe more climate-resilient. By taking a coherent approach and providing for improved coordination, it enhances the preparedness and capacity of all governance levels to respond to the impacts of climate change.
• EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. The European Commission has adopted the new  EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and an associated Action Plan (annex)  - a comprehensive, ambitious, long-term plan for protecting nature and reversing the degradation of ecosystems. It aims to put Europe's biodiversity on a path to recovery by 2030 with benefits for people, the climate and the planet. It aims to build our societies’ resilience to future threats such as climate change impacts, forest fires, food insecurity or disease outbreaks, including by protecting wildlife and fighting illegal wildlife trade. A core part of the  European Green Deal, the Biodiversity Strategy will also support a green recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Evaluation of the EU Adaptation Strategy Package. In November 2018, the EC published an evaluation of the EU Adaptation Strategy. The evaluation package comprises a Report on the implementation of the EU Strategy on adaptation to climate change (COM(2018)738), the Evaluation of the EU Strategy on adaptation to climate change (SWD(2018)461), and the Adaptation preparedness scoreboard Country fiches (SWD(2018)460). The evaluation found that the EU Adaptation Strategy has been a reference point to prepare Europe for the climate impacts to come, at all levels. It emphasized that EU policy must seek to create synergies between climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction efforts and sustainable development to avoid future damage and provide for long-term economic and social welfare in Europe and in partner countries. The evaluation also suggests areas where more work needs to be done to prepare vulnerable regions and sectors.
• Green Infrastructure (GI) — Enhancing Europe’s Natural Capital. Green infrastructure is a strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas with other environmental features designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services such as water purification, air quality, space for recreation and climate mitigation and adaptation. This network of green (land) and blue (water) spaces can improve environmental conditions and therefore citizens' health and quality of life. It also supports a green economy, creates job opportunities and enhances biodiversity. The Natura 2000 network constitutes the backbone of the EU green infrastructure.           
• Our life insurance, our natural capital: an EU biodiversity strategy to 2020. European Commission (2011).
• Science for Environment Policy. In Depth Report – Ecosystems Services and Biodiversity. European Commission 2015.