{ "title": "The summer when Europe saw its water disappear", "modified_at": "2026-09-17 10:06:18", "published_at": "2026-09-17 10:08:00", "url": "https://press.vub.ac.be/the-summer-when-europe-saw-its-water-disappear", "short_url": "http://prez.ly/ngPd", "culture": "en", "language": "EN", "subtitle": "VUB researchers take stock: \u201cWaiting for rain is not a strategy\u201d", "slug": "the-summer-when-europe-saw-its-water-disappear", "body": "

The summer of 2026 is all but over. It painfully highlighted how heat, drought, ice and water are all interconnected. It was a summer in which water disappeared from more and more places. Rivers fell to alarmingly low levels, the soil dried out, nature reserves caught fire and, in the Alps, snow and glacial ice melted away at a rapid pace. At the same time, Europe’s seas warmed up exceptionally sharply. Four VUB researchers shed light on what seemed like an exceptional summer today, but which may well become the norm in the near future. “People still often think in terms of a single type of system or a single extreme event, as if these occur in isolation from the rest, whilst systems are inherently interconnected.”

The European summer of 2026 actually began even before the summer had properly started. In May, an exceptionally early and intense heatwave swept across Western Europe. What followed was not a series of isolated weather extremes, but a chain reaction: the heat accelerated evaporation, soils dried out, rivers fell to exceptionally low levels and parched vegetation became fuel for wildfires. At the same time, snow and ice in the Alps disappeared exceptionally early, and European seas also warmed significantly.

June set the tone straight away. Western Europe experienced its warmest June since records began, and across Europe as a whole it was the second-warmest June ever recorded. The heat then persisted. July 2026 was the second-warmest July ever recorded globally, and Western Europe experienced its warmest June–July period since records began. Further heatwaves followed in August.

Belgium was not spared either. Several spells of temperatures above 30 degrees followed one after another, and in August temperatures reached around 37 degrees locally. The consequences were not only unpleasant, but also deadly. “Excess mortality due to the heat this summer in Belgium was among the highest in Europe,” says VUB glaciologist and climatologist Harry Zekollari. “That shows just how severe this summer has been. People have died as a result of the heat.”

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Cities are particularly vulnerable. Stone and concrete store heat during the day and release it again in the evening and at night. As a result, people have less opportunity to recover from the heat. Greenery makes a striking difference in this regard. “In a green environment, with plenty of trees, it can easily be several degrees cooler,” says Zekollari. “If you add a few degrees of global warming on top of the urban heat island effect, you naturally feel it very keenly.”

Not just a lack of rain

At the same time, the summer made it clear that drought is much more than just a lack of rain. Parts of Western Europe had come out of a relatively wet winter, but high temperatures cause evaporation to increase significantly. Plants lose more water and the soil also dries out more quickly. By the end of July, around half of the territory of the European Union and the United Kingdom was experiencing drought conditions. Grasslands turned brown, crops suffered from the drought and watercourses rapidly lost their flow.

In August, major European rivers such as the Rhine, Danube, Loire and Po reached exceptionally low, and in some places record-low, water levels. Cargo ships on the Rhine had to reduce their loads, and navigation on the Danube also became more difficult. The consequences are also affecting agriculture and industry, and even electricity generation, which relies on sufficient cool river water.

“People have died as a result of the heat”

In Belgium, too, water reserves came under pressure. But for VUB professor of groundwater hydrology Marijke Huysmans, it is important not just to talk about the problem. Flanders is not a desert: on an annual basis, there is sufficient rainfall. The challenge is to retain much more of that water when it is available. “Waiting for rain is not a strategy,” she wrote this summer in an opinion piece in *De Tijd*. Climate change is making droughts more frequent, longer and more intense, and they are also increasingly coinciding with heatwaves.

Solutions do indeed exist. Retaining water for longer, allowing rain to infiltrate, restoring wetlands, allowing watercourses to meander once more and reusing treated wastewater can all help to increase the water buffer. Agriculture, industry, the construction sector, towns and local authorities can also contribute, for example through rainwater harvesting, water-level-controlled drainage, circular water use, soil softening and greening.

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The interesting thing is that such measures do not only help combat drought. Allowing more water to infiltrate and be retained can also mitigate the effects of extreme rainfall. According to Huysmans, Flanders has already built up a great deal of knowledge and experience through initiatives such as the Sigma Plan and the Blue Deal. The main challenge is not to delay investments. “Let this umpteenth dry summer be a turning point to accelerate and expand investment in a robust water system.” The title of her opinion piece succinctly sums up her message: the next dry summer begins today.

The glaciers are once again heading for a disastrous year

Whilst rivers downstream ran dry, high up in the Alps the winter snow disappeared exceptionally early. On the Rhône Glacier in Switzerland, the protective layer of snow had already vanished by the end of June. From that moment on, it was no longer the snow but the old glacial ice itself that began to melt. At some measuring stations, more than a metre of ice disappeared in barely two weeks.

“The disappearance of permafrost is a risk factor that can increase the likelihood of rockfalls and mountain slope collapses”

“The two worst years so far have been 2022 and 2023,” says Zekollari. “In 2022, the Alpine glaciers lost around six per cent of their mass in a single year; in 2023, around four per cent. This year, we may be heading for a five per cent loss in volume.” The cause is a combination of low winter snowfall, a warm spring, a very warm June and then a long, hot summer. “We already know that 2026 will be a very bad year for the glaciers. The only question is how close we will come to the record loss of 2022.”

This also has consequences for water availability. Glaciers are natural reservoirs that store water as snow and ice in winter and release it again during hot summers. Due to global warming, the amount of meltwater initially even increases. But an ever-shrinking glacier can ultimately supply less and less water. Scientists call this tipping point ‘peak water’.

“In the Alps, we’ve already passed that peak,” says Zekollari. “That means the glaciers there are already supplying less water in the summer.” Elsewhere, that tipping point is expected later. In some areas, not until around 2050 to 2070. The stakes are high: globally, hundreds of millions of people depend on snow and glacier melt for their water supply.

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The changes in the high mountains bring with them other risks as well. Shrinking glaciers may provide less support for mountain slopes, and higher temperatures are affecting the permafrost. After all, these permanently frozen masses of ground are found not only in the soil but also in crevices in rock faces. When the ice within them thaws due to global warming, rock masses can become more unstable. The disappearance of permafrost is a risk factor that can increase the likelihood of rockfalls and mountain slope collapses. Moreover, the permanently frozen ground across large areas of the Eurasian continent and North America has been trapping large quantities of greenhouse gases for hundreds of thousands of years, which are released again as it melts. Zekollari does, however, caution against drawing overly simplistic conclusions when a glacier or mountainside collapses. “Glaciers can also become unstable or collapse naturally. That is why, as scientists, we mainly look at trends from a statistical perspective. And there we do indeed see that such problematic events are occurring more frequently.”

An underwater heatwave

Even the sea offered little relief from the heat this summer. In July, the Mediterranean Sea reached an average temperature of around 27 degrees, the highest average July temperature ever recorded there. In early August, sea water temperatures of around 33 degrees were recorded off Mallorca. A dip in the sea felt like a splash in a bath. But the marine heatwave was not confined to southern Europe: the North Sea and Belgian coastal waters, the Atlantic coast, the Bay of Biscay and the Celtic Sea were also affected.

According to VUB professor Tom Van der Stocken, who specialises in marine and coastal ecosystems, we should not focus solely on the temperature at the sea surface. Marine heatwaves can also occur in deeper waters and on the seabed, although current models do not yet adequately account for them.

“The summer of 2026 thus shows that heat is never just heat”

The consequences could be significant. Fish may migrate to cooler waters, causing their ranges to shift. Sedentary organisms such as corals and sponges are unable to escape. Prolonged heat can therefore lead to mortality, changes in ecosystems and, ultimately, have consequences for fisheries.

But Van der Stocken is particularly keen to avoid viewing all these phenomena in isolation. “People still often think in terms of a single type of system or a single extreme event, as if these occur in isolation from the rest, whereas systems are inherently interconnected.” What happens to an ice cap can ultimately affect coasts thousands of kilometres away. “The Greenland ice cap and the tropical coasts are very closely linked,” he says, summarising this planetary interconnectedness.

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One summer, one system

A river that has run dry, a burning peatland, a melting glacier and an overheated sea may seem like separate problems. The summer of 2026, however, demonstrated just how closely they are linked.

This was also evident in the High Fens, despite being one of Belgium’s wettest and coolest landscapes. In August, a wildfire affected around 3,000 hectares there. Peat normally retains a lot of water, but can itself become flammable after prolonged drought. A natural water buffer thus turned into fuel.

This is precisely where the perspectives of the three VUB researchers converge. Zekollari demonstrates how centuries-old water reserves in the mountains are disappearing. Van der Stocken is investigating how the restoration of mudflats, salt marshes and mangroves – such as in the Sigmaplan area, the Hedwige-Prosper polder and the Guayas Delta in Ecuador – acts as a nature-based solution to store carbon and protect the coast from erosion. And Huysmans points out that we ourselves can also do much more to retain water and make our society more resilient.

The summer of 2026 thus demonstrates that heat is never just heat. It accelerates evaporation, dries out soils, lowers river levels, fuels wildfires, speeds up the melting of glaciers and warms rivers and seas. Europe will have to adapt to a water cycle that bears ever less resemblance to the one to which our natural environment, agriculture, energy supply and infrastructure are geared.

“Nature reacts of its own accord, although this will be accompanied by changes in species composition and, for many species of organisms, a decline in biodiversity, as demonstrated for bumblebees and butterflies in Europe,” concludes Prof. Harry olde Venterink. “This summer, you can also see grass species from warmer climes thriving remarkably well along the roadsides in Brussels. We are currently investigating in our greenhouse and climate chambers how the success of these northward-migrating species depends on temperature, drought and that other environmental problem: nitrogen enrichment. How other factors in our society will adapt depends on the choices made by policymakers. You don’t need a crystal ball to predict that action is needed in the short term, because in the coming years it will become even warmer and, at times, even drier.”

So the message doesn’t necessarily have to be a gloomy one. As Huysmans emphasises, many solutions already exist. The main question is how quickly we implement them.

In short:

  • Heat sets off a chain reaction: drought, low river levels, wildfires and melting glaciers all reinforce one another.
  • Flanders must retain more water: according to Marijke Huysmans, the key lies not only in rainfall, but above all in storage and infiltration.
  • Alpine glaciers are heading for a disastrous year: Harry Zekollari expects one of the greatest losses of ice in recent decades.
  • The sea, too, has suffered from the heat: marine heatwaves can radically alter ecosystems, fish stocks and coastal areas.
  • Solutions already exist: investing more quickly in water management and nature restoration will make Europe more resilient to drought and heat.

Questions for the researchers can be submitted via the press office.

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\"Frans
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\n Frans Steenhoudt\n Perscontact wetenschap en onderzoek\n \n
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\u200b

 

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