Europe drought stays critical as watch zone expands

Copernicus said early-August drought remained stable and critical across most of Europe. Watch conditions widened in the Iberian Peninsula and Germany. Tighter water conditions, not a claim that taps ran dry.

The European Drought Observatory, part of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service, said drought in the first ten days of August 2026 remained stable and critical in most of Europe. The Joint Research Centre published the current-situation note from an analysis run on 19 August. Watch conditions expanded in the Iberian Peninsula and in Germany. Europe also saw above-average temperatures, with a heatwave across much of the Mediterranean, the Balkans, and central-eastern Europe.

On the Combined Drought Indicator, alert conditions persisted in the southeastern United Kingdom, France, southern Germany and northern Italy, with spots in the Iberian Peninsula, Belarus and Poland, and across much of the Danube basin — including Hungary and parts of Czechia, Slovakia, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine. Warning conditions remained across France, southern Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, Ireland, the Alps, northern Italy, northern Iberia, the Balkans, parts of Scandinavia and central-eastern Europe. Recovery showed in northern and eastern Europe and locally in central-southern Italy. The observatory warned that a soil-moisture issue under investigation can make the indicator less reliable in some regions, particularly western Russia.

That is a hydrological and vegetation-stress reading on published drought maps. It is not evidence that drinking-water systems have failed. Sources: Copernicus Drought Observatories, https://drought.emergency.copernicus.eu/ ; JRC current drought situation in Europe, https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/european-and-global-drought-observatories/current-drought-situation-europe_en