EGUsphere EGUsphere EGUsphere EGUsphere 2195-9269 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/egusphere-2024-2069 The 2022 Drought Needs to be a Turning Point for European Drought Risk Management Biella Riccardo https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0640-5725 1 2 Shyrokaya Ansastasiya https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0492-7407 1 2 Ionita Monica https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8240-4380 3 4 Vignola Raffaele 5 6 Sutanto Samuel https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4903-6445 7 Todorovic Andrijana https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1001-9739 8 Teutschbein Claudia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3344-2468 1 2 Cid Daniela https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4495-8643 9 10 Llasat Maria Carmen https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8720-4193 11 12 Alencar Pedro 13 Matanó Alessia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9735-0589 14 Ridolfi Elena https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4714-2511 15 Moccia Benedetta 15 Pechlivanidis Ilias https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3416-317X 16 van Loon Anne https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2308-0392 13 Wendt Doris https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2315-7871 17 Stenfors Elin https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4413-0312 1 2 Russo Fabio 14 Vidal Jean-Philippe https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3748-6150 18 Barker Lucy https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2913-0664 19 de Brito Mariana Madruga https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4191-1647 20 Lam Marleen https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9787-7228 21 Bláhová Monika https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1951-4290 22 23 Trambauer Patricia 24 Hamed Raed https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2243-3109 13 McGrane Scott J. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5277-1347 25 26 Ceola Serena https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1757-509X 27 Bakke Sigrid Jørgensen https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6302-6468 28 Krakovska Svitlana https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9972-0937 29 30 Nagavciuc Viorica https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1111-9616 3 4 Tootoonchi Faranak https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5262-1712 31 Di Baldassarre Giuliano https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8180-4996 1 2 Hauswirth Sandra https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9208-1757 32 Maskey Shreedhar 33 Zubkovych Svitlana 2 Wens Marthe https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0133-5924 13 Tallaksen Lena Merete https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8480-7842 34 Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science, Uppsala, Sweden Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden Paleoclimate Dynamics Group, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research, 27570 Bremerhaven, Germany Forest Biometrics Laboratory – Faculty of Forestry, "Ștefan cel Mare" University of Suceava, Universității street, no.13, 720229, Suceava, România Water System and Global Change, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands Gund Institute for the Environment, Vermont University, USA Earth Systems and Global Change, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands University of Belgrade, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Institute for Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain Hydrogeology Group (UPC-CSIC), Spain Department of Applied Physics, University of Barcelona, Spain IdRA, Water Research Institut, University of Barcelona, Spain Chair of Ecohydrology, Technical University of Berlin, Germany Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Edile e Ambientale, Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza, 00184 Roma, Italy Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, Norrköping, Sweden Cabot Institute for the Environment, Bristol, UK INRAE, RiverLy, Villeurbanne, France UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Wallingford, United Kingdom Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany Water Resources Management (WRM), Wageningen University & Research (WUR), Wageningen, the Netherlands Global Change Research Institute CAS, Brno, Czech Republic Mendel University in Brno, Brno, Czech Republic Deltares, The Netherlands Department of Economics, Strathclyde Business School, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow Applied Physics Department, Stanford University, CA, USA Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy Norwegian water and energy directorate, Oslo, Norway Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute, Kyiv, Ukraine National Antarctic Scientific Center, Kyiv, Ukraine Department of crop production ecology, Swedish university of agricultural sciences, Uppsala, Sweden Department of Physical Geography, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, Delft, the Netherlands Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway 14 08 2024 2024 1 42 Copyright: © 2024 Riccardo Biella et al. 2024 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2024/egusphere-2024-2069/ The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2024/egusphere-2024-2069/egusphere-2024-2069.pdf

The 2022 European drought has underscored critical deficiencies in European water management. This paper explores these shortcomings and suggests a way forward for European drought risk management.</p> <p>Data for this study was gathered through a continent-wide survey of water managers involved in this event. The survey collected 481 responses from 30 European countries and is comprised of 19 questions concerning sectorial impact in the 55 regions of the responders and drought risk management practices of their organizations. Information from the survey is enriched with climate-related information to offer a comprehensive overview of drought risk management in Europe. Our research focuses on four key aspects: the increasing risk of drought, its spatial and temporal impacts, current drought risk management approaches, and the evolution of drought risk management across the continent.</p> <p>Our findings reveal a consensus on the growing risk of drought, which is confounded by the rising frequency and intensity of droughts. While the 2022 event affected most of the continent, our findings show significant regional disparities in drought risk management capacity among the various countries. Our analysis indicates that current drought risk management measures often rely on short-term operational concerns, particularly in agriculture-dominated economies, leading to potentially maladaptive practices. An overall positive trend in drought risk management, with organizations showing increased awareness and preparedness, indicates how this crisis can be the ideal moment to mainstream European-wide drought risk management. Consequently, we advocate for a European Drought Directive, to harmonize and enforce drought risk management policies across the continent. This directive should promote a systemic, integrated, and long-term risk management perspective. The directive should also set clear guidelines for drought risk management at the national level and for cross-boundary drought collaboration.</p> <p>This study and its companion paper "<em>The 2022 Drought Shows the Importance of Preparedness in European Drought Risk Management</em> " are the result of a study carried out by the Drought in the Anthropocene (DitA) network.