How EU-WATERRES project contributes to drought mitigation in the South Poland

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View on The San River affected by drought in 2022 (photo by Mirosław Piela)

Recent news with the lack of water in riverbeds have caused major concerns among citizens and experts in whole Europe, including Poland (Global Drought Observatory report August 2022). Droughts have become more recent due to the climate change and in this summer strongly affected the largest rivers in Poland, including the San which is the border river between Poland and Ukraine.The area is a part of the larger pilot area of the EU-WATERRES project “EU-integrated management system of cross-border groundwater resources and anthropogenic hazards”.

Since 2020 Polish-Ukrainian team of experts in the field of hydrogeology, hydrology and water management have worked on development of hydrodynamic model for the pilot area. Further, the model has been the basis to identify zones where groundwater can move freely between countries. One may ask why is groundwater of interest to the project team since the problem concerns surface water and the disappearance of the San River? The answer is that most rivers are hydraulically connected with aquifers. And continuous groundwater discharge into the rivers ensures that there is water in the dry periods between rainy and snowmelt periods.

One of the EU-WATERRES project’s aim is to mitigate the risk for similar phenomena occurrence in the future. By creating hydrodynamic models reflecting the actual hydrogeological conditions experts will be able to precisely determine the causes of water loss in the upper part of the San River and predict the areas prone to severe drought events.

Do you want to know more? Full article is available on EU-WATERRES project’s homepage  https://eu-waterres.eu/2022/08/09/drought-in-the-south-of-poland/

References: Drought in Europe (2022) JRC Global Drought Observatory https://edo.jrc.ec.europa.eu/documents/news/GDO-EDODroughtNews202208_Europe.pdf

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