Hungary to dry out because of poor water management?

A new report of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) states that droughts will be more frequent, more dangerous and will last longer because of the poor water management of the lower Danube region. 

EU members do not want healthy waters?

According to szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu, bad droughts have been making life difficult in every part of Europe lately, and the worst is yet to come. France and Germany already had to implement emergency measures to tackle with exceptional drought this summer. However, based on WWF’s latest report, the damages caused by extreme drought can be decreased only by prevention measures in the water-abundant periods.

According to the WWF, the measures taken by EU-member countries to date have been mainly reactive, rather than preventative. Authorities acted only after there were already negative effects but droughts and water scarcity must be addressed when it is still possible to “save” the water provided by freshwater ecosystems in anticipation
of the next drought.

Based on the most recent data from the European Drought Observatory, even Europe’s northernmost countries, like

the Baltic region and Sweden, are experiencing the first warning signs of drought,

such as deficits in rainfall and soil moisture. 

However, Europe’s freshwater resources are not protected well: 60 pc of them currently fail to meet the “good status” requirement of the EU’s water legislation. Moreover, there are no European rivers without dams. According to the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), by 2027, Europe’s rivers, lakes, wetlands, streams, groundwater, transitional and coastal waters have to become healthy to enable them to better face the pressures ahead. 

Because of the pollution, changes to shape or flow (dams), or the pressures of over-abstraction (excessive use of water, such as for the purposes of irrigation) freshwater ecosystems of Europe are not healthy anymore. Furthermore, member states would even like to weaken the

WFD aiming to protect our waters.

Poor water management practices can endanger future water sources and make it hard for water ecosystems to deal with the harmful effects of climate change.