The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) has issued a report and map showing “worsening drought conditions across southern, eastern, and central Europe from 11 to 20 March 2025.” Conditions are “severe, enduring and critical”, in the Mediterranean and Middle East regions, a summary said, while the Iberian Peninsula also faces “critical” conditions, with vegetation affected in several regions and “extreme impacts due to alternating periods of drought and intense winter and spring precipitation.”
Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS) picked up on the report in a post on X, reissuing the JRC’s map. Conditions on it are colour-coded, with yellow for “watch”, amber for “warning” and red for “alert,” while white shows no data.
Some areas normal but most experiencing low rainfall
The best news is that some parts of Scandinavia, southern Great Britain, northern, central and western Iberian Peninsula, the majority of France, parts of Germany, Switzerland, most of northern and central Italy, wide areas in the western Balkans, the region across eastern Bulgaria and Romania, most of Hungary, and parts of Greece show “normal or recovery conditions.”
However, wide regions in central-eastern Europe, western Russia, Moldova, Romania, western Ukraine, the eastern and central Alps, some regions in Türkiye, a few areas in the southern Balkans, and the UK are under so-called “watch conditions”due to low rainfall.
When it comes to “alert drought” conditions, they are persistent in areas of the Mediterranean region, particularly south-eastern Spain, Cyprus and Crete. Severe and prolonged drought is even more intense and worsening in most of northern Morocco, northern Algeria, and some regions in Tunisia, causing significant impacts. Alert conditions have also been developing in central and south-eastern Türkiye, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, parts of Jordan, northern Iraq, Iran and Azerbaijan.
🚱 #Drought Report – Mid-March 2025
— Copernicus EMS (@CopernicusEMS) April 1, 2025
Drought conditions are slowly worsening across southern, eastern & central Europe.
🔴 Severe impacts persist in the Mediterranean, with critical conditions in the Iberian Peninsula affecting vegetation.#EDO report: https://t.co/rIltDNfdIr pic.twitter.com/9QtiTcBkNy
Huge swathes of the continent at “warning” level
But where data is available, the majority of Europe’s status appears at “warning” level. That includes “sparse” parts of Portugal, Spain, Italy, the south-eastern Baltic Sea region, Poland, Belarus, most of Ukraine, some regions of Greece, some areas of the Balkans, Cyprus, most of Türkiye, Malta and southern Mediterranean islands, a few spots in France, and sparse regions in Germany.
Even landmasses usually associated with poor weather and rainfall such as parts of south-east Sweden, Ireland, and the UK are also at “warning” level and the JRC notes that the only reason the lack of rain in the north-western European area, Benelux, Slovakia, parts of Austria and in Czechia has not yet resulted in “impacts” is because of the winter season.
European Commission and UN aligned on sustainability
The stark drought information comes after a late March meeting between the European Commissioner for the Environment, Water Resilience, and a Competitive Circular Economy,Jessika Roswall, and the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Inger Andersen, in Brussels.
.@UNEP and the @EU_Commission agreed today to boost cooperation on environmental solutions to underpin competitiveness, resilience and security objectives. Essential partnership in a critical period for multilateralism.
— UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Europe 🌱 (@UNEP_Europe) March 28, 2025
➡️https://t.co/xX1PoDrx6K pic.twitter.com/3gOuCiy1ge
Their dialogue was aimed at aligning strategic priorities seen as crucial in addressing the intertwined planetary crises of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, pollution and waste. Both the Commission and UNEP agreed that the core of their cooperation framework should focus on joint actions to address the root causes and emerging challenges of environmental sustainability.
