HotSpots H2O: Scenes From an Overheating, Drying World 

Kitchen tables with meals made from locally grown foods. Reliable electricity to power lights, refrigerators, and air conditioners. Clean water flowing from showerheads and taps, sustaining the basic sanitation that keeps individuals and their loved ones healthy. 

Scenes that are perhaps taken for granted by many are being tested on a monumental scale this summer, as drought and extreme heat are pushing critical systems around the world toward their limits amid “super” El Niño conditions.

From closing power plants along the Danube River, to failing infrastructure in North Africa, to drought-stricken farms across three continents, the consequences of soaring temperatures and exceptional droughts are cascading and connected. This special edition of The Stream highlights several hotspots from a drying world. 

Energy Crises Loom for Hungary and Romania as Danube Levels Dwindle 

Sweeping energy emergencies are stalking eastern Europe as successive heatwaves and drought drop water levels on the Danube River to record lows. The problem is most pronounced in Hungary, where officials are preparing for the total shutdown of its largest nuclear power plant, which produces more than 40 percent of the nation’s electricity.

Prime Minister Péter Magyar announced on Saturday that all but one of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant’s four reactors had been shut off, reducing the location’s output to just 240 megawatts, roughly 10 percent of its total capacity. The final reactor, originally planned for closure on Sunday, is expected to be turned off sometime within the next few days, which are forecast to bring extreme heat and no significant rainfall to much of central Hungary. If and when this does happen, it will mark the first time in Paks’ 44-year-history that the plant is fully non-operational. 

“The hardest five days are ahead,” Magyar wrote Monday on social media, while also praising the country for reducing its energy consumption by 700 megawatts on Sunday: “Thank you for the common sacrifice so far!”

Paks depends on water from the Danube, Europe’s second-longest river, to cool its reactors. But extreme heat and drought have reduced water levels in several locations along the river to record-lows, with the plant unable to intake the water it needs to continue operating. Last week, the river’s height in Budapest was measured at 9 inches, Deutsche Welle reports, well below the previous low of 13 inches set in 2018. 

The Danube flows eastward from Hungary, eventually reaching Romania and the Black Sea. This week, the Romanian government has taken drastic, explosive measures to prolong operations at the Cernavodǎ Nuclear Power Plant — the country’s only nuclear facility, which generates roughly 20 percent of its total electricity — as long as it can. 

One of Cernavodǎ’s two reactors was shut down last week, and officials are preparing for the second to shutter as well. In a last-ditch effort to extend electricity production for an extra day or two, the Romanian Navy on Monday used munitions to blow up a rock formation in the Danube and divert water directly to the plant’s reactors. 

“Any day past Wednesday or Thursday that the nuclear power plant functions is a gain,” Radu Miruțǎ, Romania’s defense minister, said on Monday, Reuters reports. “A day of it functioning is three times more efficient than the costs of this operation.”

Protests Erupt in Libya and Tunisia As 120 Degree Heatwaves Expose Faulty Infrastructure

Life this summer is becoming increasingly untenable across North Africa, where extended heatwaves of temperatures in excess of 120 degrees Fahrenheit have pushed aging power grids and water delivery systems past their breaking points, the Associated Press reports. 

In Libya, daily blackouts lasting between four hours and 14 hours have spurred protests, with demonstrations held so far in the urban centers of Tripoli, Zawiya, and Misrata. The height of these movements came last month, when dozens of people stormed an oil and gas facility located 55 miles west of the capital. Meanwhile, calls for the removal of Libya’s government — which residents say have underinvested in public utilities for years — are growing louder. 

The protests mirror those that have erupted in recent weeks in Tunisia, where citizens are similarly fed up with frequent power and water outages, as well as movements that have spread across Morocco and Algeria in the last several years, also focused on unreliable water access. 

In April, three of these four water-stressed countries — Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria — signed a deal to jointly manage shared groundwater sources beneath the northern Sahara Desert as shortages bear out in real time. 

Libya is one of the most water-scarce countries in the world, according to the United Nations, with more than 90 percent of its water coming from non-renewable groundwater sources. Earlier this year, the country announced a new water security strategy meant to build resilience by 2050. 

“Our strategic objectives are clear: reducing individual consumption and ending the over-reliance on non-renewable groundwater, cutting water loss in our networks to less than 25 percent, and integrating the ‘Nexus’ approach, linking water, energy, and ecosystems,” the country’s Minister of Water Resources Hosni Awedan said in a statement. 

From Uganda to Sudan to England, Food Systems Collapse In Drought

Persistent dry spells across the world this summer have left gaping holes in both global food supply chains and small communities’ farm-to-table economies. 

These losses have been made material — and deadly — in northeastern Uganda this summer, where widespread crop failure has meant that roughly 1.5 million people are facing acute food shortages, the Guardian reports, and at least 19 people have died from hunger.

The Ugandan government is responding by launching emergency supply deliveries. It is the country’s first large-scale distribution of food since cuts to USAID severely undermined many countries’ abilities to provide disaster response. 

Similarly devastating scenarios are playing out in Sudan, where the consequences of drought on the local food supply are exacerbated by years-long civil wars. According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, Sudan is forecast to reach “emergency-level” food insecurities by September, putting an estimated 22 million people in need of disaster assistance. South of the border, in an effort to stay ahead of the looming food crisis, the United Nations and South Sudanese government launched the country’s first ever “anticipatory drought” plan, delivering cash transfers to tens of thousands of people so they can better prepare for expected crop and livestock losses and water shortages. 

“Anticipatory action is transforming the way we manage climate-related shocks,” Mutinta Chimuka, the World Food Programme Country Director in South Sudan, said in a statement.  “Rather than wait for drought to deepen humanitarian needs, we are acting based on forecasts and evidence to support communities before livelihoods are disrupted.”

Growers are also feeling the pressure in both England and Wales, which just experienced their driest July since records began in 1836, according to provisional data from the United Kingdom’s Meteorological Office. Just 9 percent of Wales’ expected July rain totals, and 10 percent of England’s expected totals, fell. Nineteen counties across the latter country experienced 1 millimeter or less of rain over the entire month, which was simultaneously the United Kingdom’s second-hottest on record.

The consequences are wide-reaching. Roughly 23 million people in England and Wales are currently under a hosepipe ban, which restricts residents from watering their lawns, filling pools, or washing their cars amid water shortages. 

“The combination of record-breaking dryness, exceptional warmth and unprecedented sunshine has delivered one of the most notable summer months in our historical records,” Meteorological Office science manager Amy Doherty said in a statement. 

The National Farmers Union of England and Wales is using the record-breaking summer to urge the English government to prioritize water security for the agricultural sector. Earlier this week, the union warned that some food shortages may set in if harvests continue to fail. 

“Water is a vital ingredient in food production, and without a secure supply, we cannot build resilient farm businesses or strengthen the country’s food security,” Paul Tompkins, the union’s deputy president, said in a statement. 

Top Image: Reservoirs in Arizona, where 89 percent of the state is currently experiencing drought conditions. Photo © J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue