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Water Worries and Drought Tolerant Plants

August 24, 2022

Water worries
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Water Worries and Drought Tolerant Plants

A Summer Update from Shipka

This summer has been incredibly hot and dry, and even some of the older and more established trees have looked under strain. With increasing periods of hot and dry weather and pressure on both the mains water supply and our perennial source from the river, designing our gardens to be as resilient as possible seems the best way forward. During this post, we’ll be looking at the challenges we’ve faced this season with our usual water supply and take a look at some useful drought tolerant plants that have faired well in dry and hot conditions.

Our project is located in the town of Shipka on the foothills of the Balkan mountains in central Bulgaria. As such our gardens have a gradient that means we can benefit from a gravity-fed perennial water source, a local mountain stream.  The stream water can be diverted into purpose-built cement channels that run down the sides of many of the streets and under roads, making this water accessible for many households. It can also be diverted into the fields. It’s an incredible system although somewhat neglected. All of our gardens were designed to take advantage of this resource.  In the image below you can see the main path of the stream through the mountain, and then the diversion created. The highlighted plot here is one of our gardens, Phronesis. There is approximately a 3m drop from the north to the south of the plot and the slope is more or less even from east to west.
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The mountain stream can be diverted into the site from the north
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European Corn Yields Expected To Plunge Amid Worst Drought In 500 Years

August 23, 2022

European Corn Yields Expected To Plunge Amid Worst Drought In 500 Years

Besides the news of record high electricity prices, a troubling new crop failure report about Europe’s upcoming harvest was published Monday. The bloc’s Monitoring Agricultural Resources forecasted corn yields could drop by nearly a fifth due to a devastating drought, according to Bloomberg.

Before we dive into the crop report, Europe’s centuries-old ‘hunger stones’ were recently revealed in the Elbe River, which runs from the mountains of Czechia through Germany to the North Sea. The stones date back to a drought in 1616 and read: “Wenn du mich siehst, dann weine.” That translates to “if you see me, then weep.” 

The warning on the stones appears correct because the new crop report forecasts corn yields will drop 16% below the five-year average. That compares with a July forecast of an 8% decline.

The plunge in corn output could result in further food inflation. It will boost feed costs for livestock herds, adding to even more woes for farmers who are plagued with elevated diesel and fertilizer prices.

“Water and heat stress periods partly coincided with the sensitive flowering stage and grain filling,” according to the crop monitoring report. “This resulted in irreversibly lost yield potential.”

In late August, about half of Europe is under a drought warning. Crops, power plants, industry, and fish populations have been devastated by the heat and lack of rainfall. The European Commission Joint Research Centre warned earlier this month the ongoing drought is the worst in 500 years as vast amounts of farmland turn to dust.

Heading into the fall, western and central Europe face a very high risk of dry conditions over the next three months that could result in water shortages.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Hitler’s Scuttled Black Sea Fleet, Centuries-Old ‘Hunger Stones’ Emerge From Dry Riverbeds In Drought-Stricken Europe

August 21, 2022

Hitler’s Scuttled Black Sea Fleet, Centuries-Old ‘Hunger Stones’ Emerge From Dry Riverbeds In Drought-Stricken Europe

Extreme droughts across Europe are revealing thousands of years of lost history.

In some regions, centuries-old warning messages etched into boulders have been exposed. As StrangeSounds.org reports, these rocks – known as “Hungersteine” or “Hunger Stones”

One stone, embedded in the Elbe River, which runs from the mountains of Czechia through Germany to the North Sea, dates back to a drought in 1616, is once again visible in the dry riverbed.

The warning reads, “Wenn du mich seehst, dann weine” – “If you see me, weep.”

Source

“Hunger stones” like this one were used as “hydrological landmarks” across central Europe, NPR reported when the stones last surfaced during a 2018 drought.

These stones are “chiselled with the years of hardship and the initials of authors lost to history,” a team of Czech researchers wrote in a 2013 study.

“The basic inscriptions warn of the consequences of drought. It expressed that drought had brought a bad harvest, lack of food, high prices and hunger for poor people.”

Europe’s current drought is certainly historic. As StrangeSounds.org goes on to note, the XIV century Mesta Bridge in Villarta de los Montes (Extremadura, Spain), a nice example of Mudéjar-Gothic civil engineering. Since 1956 it’s been covered by the waters of the Cijara Reservoir, but the drought has brought it back to light.

The remains of the Aquis Querquennis Roman castrum in Galicia, which is normally covered by the waters of the Lima River and the Concha reservoir. It dates back to the III century and was on the Via Nova.

As Italy faces “the most serious water crisis in the last 70 years,” a 450lb , World War II-era bomb was exposed in the dried up Po River bed…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Europe’s Nuclear & Hydropower Falter With Droughts

August 16, 2022

Europe’s Nuclear & Hydropower Falter With Droughts

As Europe looks to secure alternative energy sources to Russian gas in light of the war in Ukraine, Statista’s Anna Fleck warns, a new threat to energy security is stirring, this time from droughts.

The droughts hitting Europe are impacting everything from food to transportation to the environment.

In Italy, the River Po has fallen two meters below its normal levels, seeing rice paddy fields dry out. Meanwhile, Germany’s River Rhine has become so shallow that cargo vessels can’t pass through it fully loaded, pushing up shipping costs, and France’s Tille River, in the Burgundy region, is now a dried up bed covered in thousands of dead fish.

But Europe’s energy production has also been impacted. As Statista’s chart below shows, hydroelectric power has fallen some 20 percent since 2021. This partly comes down to the fact reservoirs have been drying up in countries such as Italy, Serbia, Montenegro and Norway. The latter, according to Bloomberg, usually a major hydroproducer, is even taking the steps to reduce exports in order to prioritize refilling its reservoir’s low water levels so the country can maintain domestic production.

Infographic: Europe’s Nuclear & Hydropower Falter With Droughts | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

Nuclear power too has fallen since 2021. One reason for this is that France has had to shut down several of its nuclear power plants because the rivers Rhone and the Garonne have been too warm to be able to cool down its reactors. France is 70 percent dependent on nuclear energy and is a key exporter of electricity, usually supplying Italy, Germany and the UK. It’s important to note here however, that other problems are troubling France’s nuclear fleet too. A significant number of the country’s power plants have had to be powered down recently due to malfunctions and maintenance issues, which had been delayed because of the pandemic. These combined reasons mean, according to Wired, that the country’s hydropower output is down nearly 50 percent.

“Worst I’ve Ever Seen”: Cotton Prices Soar After Historic USDA Cut Amid Megadrought

August 16, 2022

“Worst I’ve Ever Seen”: Cotton Prices Soar After Historic USDA Cut Amid Megadrought

US cotton prices continued to surge above the boom days of 2010-11 after a massive crop estimate cut by the USDA, shocking Wall Street analysts and traders, due primarily to a megadrought scorching farmland of Texas, according to Bloomberg.

Futures in New York for December delivery were up 4.5% to $1.1359 a pound and up more than 21% this month.

“I don’t think you can put a top on prices right now,” Louis Barbera, the managing partner for VLM Commodities, told Bloomberg.

“I have been going to Texas for more than ten years, and this is by far the absolute worst I have ever seen, said Barbera.  

What Barbera is referring to is the drought situation in Texas. The long stretches of triple-digit temperatures and limited rainfall this summer have turned vast amounts of farmland to dust, hurting cotton farmers in the South Plains of West Texas.

Last Friday, the USDA’s bigger-than-expected cut to domestic cotton crop stunned many on Wall Street. Crop output plunged to 12.57 million bales, the lowest in a decade. The cut also pushed down the US from the world’s third-largest producer to the world’s fourth.

Barbera said the western Texas region (around Lubbock and Lamesa), the epicenter of America’s cotton-growing belt, has “literally nothing” in fields that are just desert sand. He said fields that had drip irrigation were harvestable, but ones that weren’t weren’t salvageable.

“If cotton is not readily available from other sources, the scarcity of supply from the US could support prices globally, said Jon Devine, supply-chain economist for research Cotton Inc.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Horrifying Drought Is Causing Widespread Crop Failures Throughout The United States And Europe

August 16, 2022

A Horrifying Drought Is Causing Widespread Crop Failures Throughout The United States And Europe

We really are reaching a major crisis point.  Thanks to soaring fertilizer prices, insane weather patterns and the war in Ukraine, global food supplies have been getting tighter and tighter.  So we really needed a banner year for agricultural production in both the United States and Europe in 2022, and that is not going to happen.  In fact, unprecedented drought is absolutely devastating crops all over the northern hemisphere.  A lot of people are complaining about how high food prices are right now, but just wait.  If some sort of a miracle doesn’t happen, agricultural production is going to be way below expectations in both the United States and Europe, and that is going to have very serious implications for 2023.

Let me start by talking about the nightmare that is starting to unfold in Europe.

According to CNN, it is now being projected that farmers in Italy have lost “up to 80% of their harvest” because the drought has become so severe…

In Italy, farmers in some parts of the country have lost up to 80% of their harvest this year due to severe weather anomalies, the Coldretti farming association said Thursday.

How are those farmers going to survive?

Many farmers in France are facing similar losses because they have only been receiving a fraction of the rainfall that they normally get…

In France, where an intense drought has hammered farmers and prompted widespread limits on freshwater use, there was just 9.7 millimetres (0.38 inches) of rain last month, Meteo France said.

That was 84 percent down on the average levels seen for July between 1991 and 2022, making it the driest month since March 1961, the agency added.

Crop failures in France would be a really, really big deal, because France is normally “the fourth-largest exporter of wheat” in the entire world…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Nothing Left In Pipes”: French Towns Rely on Water Truck Deliveries For Survival

August 12, 2022

“Nothing Left In Pipes”: French Towns Rely on Water Truck Deliveries For Survival

Severe drought conditions affect about 60% of the EU, and in France, dozens of municipalities have run out of water and relied on a fleet of trucks hauling fresh water for survival.

At least 100 towns and villages have run out of fresh water. The French government has stepped in to support these drought-stricken areas.

French environment minister Christophe Bechu said in dozens of municipalities, “there is nothing left in the pipes,” referring to freshwater systems that have run completely dry. He said the ‘historic’ crisis has resulted in the deployment of a fleet of trucks delivering water to areas in need.

Besides France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands are all facing water shortages and falling water levels on inland waterways (the situation on the River Rhine is one to follow). Drought conditions across 60% of the EU could have severe economic consequences, affecting energy production, agriculture, and river transportation.

Record heat across Europe has fueled “increased fire danger due to the lack of rain and the resulting dry vegetation, combined with high temperatures,” the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service noted.

In southwest France, a massive wildfire has scorched 14,000 hectares in just a few weeks, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people.

We’ve pointed out that French utility Electricite de France SA had to “reduce or halt nuclear output” because record-breaking heat on the Rhone and Garonne rivers made the water too hot to circulate through condensers and discharge back into waterways.

Meanwhile, French power prices are at a new record of over 600 euros per megawatt hour amid grid strains thanks to the lack of nuclear power generation amid heightened demand during heatwave.

The bad news is the persistent heat wave is forecasted to continue in parts of western and central Europe through the second half of August.

Germany’s Industrial Heartland Faces Crisis As Rhine River May Become Impassable By Friday

August 10, 2022

Germany’s Industrial Heartland Faces Crisis As Rhine River May Become Impassable By Friday

Water levels on the Rhine River are nearing dangerously low levels, and new forecasts expect Europe’s most critical waterway for inland commodity shipments via barges could be impassable by the end of the week.

The river at Kaub, Germany, is 47 centimeters (18.5 inches) on Wednesday and is expected to drop to the critical depth of 40 centimeters (15.7 inches) by Friday, according to the German Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration. There is even the possibility water levels could fall as low as 37 centimeters (14.5 inches) during the weekend.

Below 40 centimeters would mean barges at the key transit point in Germany would no longer be able to pass and restrict shipments of energy products and other commodities along Europe’s most crucial waterway amid the worst energy shortage in decades.

In the next couple of days, if forecasts are correct, Germany’s industrial heartland may risk a repeat of the disruption seen during the river’s historical low in 2018. Rhine River becoming impassible would certainly exacerbate Europe’s ongoing energy crisis.

The Rhine snakes about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) from the Swiss Alps through Europe’s largest industrial areas and has already dented cargo shipments for chemicals giant BASF SE, steelmaker ThyssenKrupp AG, and utility Uniper SE. Bloomberg lists the most exposed companies to low Rhine River levels:

Uniper warned low water levels have reduced barge coal shipments to a major power plant. The utility said its 510-megawatt Staudinger-5 coal-fired power plant had seen fewer and fewer barge shipments of coal due to dwindling low water levels that could soon result in “irregular operation.”

Bloomberg outlines the most transported goods on the waterway. If water levels fall below 40 centimeters, companies must use rail and trucking for transportation.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Situation Is Really Precarious”: World’s Largest Rice Exporter Faces Output Decline Amid Heatwave

August 6, 2022

“Situation Is Really Precarious”: World’s Largest Rice Exporter Faces Output Decline Amid Heatwave

The effects of elevated food prices have rippled worldwide and forced governments to impose price controls and trade restrictions. Price increases are due to supply constraints driven by several variables, including high energy prices, geopolitics, and weather. Ukraine restarted maritime transport of crops to the rest of the world, forcing grain prices to slip, though the food crisis is far from over.

We pointed out in April that the next challenge for the global food supply could be a plunge in rice production (read: here). Fast forward months later, and our suspicions appear to be right as India, the world’s largest rice exporter, has seen planting areas of the crop decline by 13% due to heatwaves and drought.

India accounts for 40% of the global rice trade, and a decline in production will complicate India’s domestic inflation fight. It could result in export restrictions, leading to few supplies for the rest of the world.

In the last two weeks, prices in India have soared more than 10% in top growing states such as West Bengal, Odisha, and Chhattisgarh due to lack of rainfall and crop output concerns, Mukesh Jain, a director at Sponge Enterprises Pvt., a rice trader, told Bloomberg. He expects export prices to reach $400 a ton by next month from $365 this week.

Rice feeds half of humanity and is vital for political and economic stability across Asia. Supply disruptions due to potential trade restrictions by India could create shortages and rising prices elsewhere.

There’s still hope crop output could recover as the monsoon season is expected to produce normal rainfall through September. However, some farmers sounded the alarm output is expected to drop significantly.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

UK Water Restrictions Go Into Effect As Heatwave Persists

August 6, 2022

UK Water Restrictions Go Into Effect As Heatwave Persists

Britain has recorded one of its hottest and driest summers on record. Rivers and reservoirs are drying up as towns in the southern part of the country imposed the first hosepipe ban on Friday.

The country’s record heat in July — above 104 Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) — melted airport runways, buckled train tracks, and shuttered transportation networks, as London’s fire brigade said it had one of the busiest days since World War II. The heat dome resulted in dozens of building structure fires and wildfires.

As of 1700 local time Friday, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight residents will be placed under emergency water restrictions called “temporary use ban.” If residents water their gardens, yards, and/or clean their vehicles, they could face a stiff penalty of up to $1,200 (£1,000). A similar ban will go into effect for residents in Kent and Sussex from Aug. 12.

“Months of sparse rainfall, combined with record-breaking temperatures in July, have left rivers at exceptionally low levels, depleted reservoirs and dried-out soils,” British newspaper The Independent wrote.

London dodged the water restrictions for now as its large reservoirs are at “very comfortable levels,” Barnaby Dobson, a research associate on the Community Water Management for a Liveable London project at Imperial College London, told Bloomberg.

However, water reservoirs in London could slump as the metro area faces levels of drought not seen in a decade.

Dobson said rationing is a measure of last resort and would come after hosepipe bans. He said water utilities are very wary of implementing water rationings because it would trigger consumer backlash.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Water Woes

July 31, 2022

Water Woes

If you live in a place where water falls from the sky during summer this blog is perhaps not so helpful. However, gardeners in much of the western United States will suffer this summer from hot days (sometimes record breaking) and will need to irrigate their gardens and trees in order for them to survive impending drought conditions. The ongoing drought has drained reservoirs and flows of rivers are down or, in some cases, dry entirely. Due to water scarcity, purveyors are restricting water use outside of homes and in some cases curtailing all landscape irrigation. Using water wisely in the landscape has never been more relevant than now. In this blog post we’ll continue to explore saving our gardens from drought and touch on water use, water demand and plant stress.

Good news — Bad news

The good news is that the longest day of the year was last month. That means that the days are ever so gradually getting shorter. As days shorten, plants use less water. Water use is tied directly to photosynthesis and when the lights are out there is no photosynthesis. Shorter days mean less demand for water. The bad news is that we may have record breaking hot days ahead. Plants become susceptible to wilt, sunburn and dieback during very hot weather. The best way to prevent this is to ensure that roots are moist during very hot weather.

The combination of drought and heat caused sunburn to these privet leaves

Mediterranean Climate

It turns out that in Ventura, CA the longest day of the year is one of the historically driest months (least rainfall) and the shortest day occurs in a month with more rain than average…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Drought-Stricken Lake Mead Less Than 150 Feet From “Dead Pool”

June 21, 2022

Drought-Stricken Lake Mead Less Than 150 Feet From “Dead Pool”

The surface of Lake Mead, North America’s largest artificial reservoir, now stands at 1044 feet above sea level and is dropping fast. If Lake Mead’s water level falls another 149 feet, a dangerous level known as a “dead pool” could wreak havoc across Southwestern US.

Since the beginning of March, Lake Mead has dropped about 23 feet, and compared with the 5-year trend, the reservoir’s water levels are well below average, at the lowest point since the lake was filled nearly a century ago.

A graph might not do justice to visualizing just how fast the water level has fallen. So here are three pictures of a sunken speedboat in the lake and the corresponding date. Just in May, the boat was partially submerged. Now there’s no water.

If Lake Mead were to keep dropping, it could be a couple of years until a danger zone at 895 feet is reached, which is the point water would no longer pass through Hoover Dam to supply California, Arizona, and Mexico. Below 895 feet, the lake would be considered a “dead pool.”

For more context of what’s happened over the last three decades as a megadrought grips the US West, here’s a view of the spillway of the Hoover Dam in 1983 versus 2021.

Weather satellites have captured an absolutely stunning view of the lake rapidly shrinking in the last two years.

A lake observer on YouTuber shows how the water level has dangerously dropped in the last two weeks.

Last week, Tanya Trujillo, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for water and science, said in a speech, “We have an urgent need to act now.”

If no drastic action is taken and the lake hits dead pool level (read: “The Real Deadpool: America’s Drought Is Worse Than You Think”), millions of people in Arizona, California, Nevada, and parts of Mexico could experience devastating water shortages.

Feds Weigh Emergency Actions As Lake Powell Hits Historic Low

April 16, 2022

Feds Weigh Emergency Actions As Lake Powell Hits Historic Low

The megadrought in the US West continues to wreak havoc as Federal officials weigh reducing water deliveries downstream on the Colorado River to prevent shuttering of a massive dam that provides power to millions of people, according to AP News.

Last month, Lake Powell dropped to 3,525 feet (1,075 meters), the lowest level since the federal government dammed the Colorado River at Glen Canyon (located in northern Arizona) more than five decades ago. This has caused officials at the Interior Department to propose holding back water at the dam to maintain the dam’s ability to generate power.

Tanya Trujillo, the Interior’s assistant secretary, warned if Lake Powell drops below 3,490 feet (1,063 meters), it will produce electrical grid uncertainty for the western part of the US, potentially affecting up to five million customers across Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.

“We’re in crisis management, and health and human safety issues, including production of hydropower, are taking precedence,” said Jack Schmidt, director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University. 

The record low water level also comes as researchers have found the US West has been experiencing some of the driest conditions in more than 1,200 years.

Over the decade, drought conditions have worsened. Several major Californian reservoirs have dried up, forcing people to evacuate their boats and causing hydroelectric plants to shutter due to insufficient water supplies to spin turbines.

Reservoirs across California are well below their historical averages (as of Apr. 14).

According to the US Drought Monitor data, the US West is experiencing severe to extreme drought conditions.

New forecasts by federal government meteorologists may suggest drought conditions could deteriorate even more as there’s a 59% chance of La Niña for the Northern Hemisphere through summer. What this would mean is drier conditions.

Severe Drought And “Dust Bowl Conditions” Threaten To Create A Disastrous Winter Wheat Harvest In The U.S.

March 22, 2022

Severe Drought And “Dust Bowl Conditions” Threaten To Create A Disastrous Winter Wheat Harvest In The U.S.

Food prices in the U.S. have already been soaring, and now we are on track for an absolutely horrible winter wheat harvest.  Of course this comes at a time when the war on the other side of the globe is going to greatly reduce wheat exports from Russia and Ukraine.  Over the last 12 months, the price of wheat has already risen 69 percent, and now this crisis threatens to go to an entirely new level.  In all my years of writing, I have never seen anything like this, and I am deeply concerned about what the months ahead will bring.

Due to extreme drought, winter wheat is in very bad shape in states such as Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.  The following comes from one of the most prominent agricultural websites in the entire country…

Some farmers in southwestern Kansas, the top U.S. wheat producing state, have not received much measurable rain or snow since October. Winter wheat is planted in autumn, lays dormant in winter and begins sending up green shoots in spring. Proper soil moisture is critical at this stage for the crop to thrive.

More than half of Kansas was classified as under severe drought or worse as of March 8, the driest conditions since 2018, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center. Severe drought is also covering three-quarters of Oklahoma and more than two-thirds of Texas, both of which also are large wheat producers.

If that sounds really bad, that is because it is really bad.

Farmers are praying for rain, because they desperately need it.

That same article also discussed the fact that winter wheat was severely damaged by a wind storm “that brought ‘Dust Bowl’ conditions to Kansas”…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Scientists warn of widespread drought in the 21st century

February 1, 2022

Scientists warn of widespread drought in the 21st century

Scientists sound alarm over widespread drought in the 21st century
Frequency changes (%) of different drought metrics from 1970–99 to 2070–99 under the (left) SSP2-4.5 and (right) SSP5-8.5 scenarios projected by CMIP6 multimodel ensemble mean. Credit: IAP

Drought is among the most damaging natural hazards in the world, often causing severe losses to agriculture, ecosystems and human societies.

Historical records of precipitation, streamflow and observation-derived  indices all show increased aridity since 1950s over several hotspot regions, including Africa, southern Europe, East Asia, eastern Australia, Northwest Canada, and southern Brazil.

“Climate model projections also suggest that drought may become more severe and widespread as the -induced global warming continues in the 21st century,” said Prof. Zhao Tianbao from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Recently, Zhao and Prof. Dai Aiguo from University at Albany, State University of New York, further investigated hydroclimatic and drought changes in the latest projections from 25 models of the Phase Six of the Coupled Model Inetercomparison Project (CMIP6).

Their results were published in the Journal of Climate on Jan. 5.

The study suggests that the latest projections from CMIP6 models reaffirm the widespread drying and increases in agricultural drought by up to 200 percent over most of the Americas (including the Amazon), Europe and the Mediterranean region, southern Africa, Southeast Asia, and Australia under moderate-high emissions scenarios in the 21st century.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the drought is also expected to last longer and spread wider in the late 21st century (2070–99), Zhao noted.

The model results suggest a decrease in the mean and flattening of the probability distribution functions of drought metrics, despite large uncertainties in individual projections partly due to internal variability.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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