The Rhine dropped to 74 centimeters in Cologne in July, one of the readings that describe a drought that has worsened month by month since spring. The combination of lack of rainfall and extreme heat left the continent’s four major rivers — the Loire, the Po, the Rhine and the Danube — at their lowest levels in decades during July and August; something already anticipated by the JRC’s May report and its July report, which serve as background to this August update.
Sentinel-2 satellite images, taken between August 1 and 3 and published by the EU Space Support Office, show the same pattern in the other three basins: exposed sandbanks and gravel beds in the Loire near Saumur, the Po near Cremona, and the Danube near Paks.
Sentinel-2 images from August 1-3, 2026: the Loire near Saumur (France), the Po near Cremona (Italy), the Rhine near Boppard (Germany) and the Danube near Paks (Hungary), with extensive sand and gravel banks exposed. © European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery.
The August 12 briefing draws on data from the European Drought Observatory (EDO), updated on August 10 with the assessment for July 21-31: half of the territory of the EU and the UK is under some level of drought — watch, warning or alert — and 9% is at the most severe level, alert.
|
50%
Share of EU and UK territory under some degree of drought
July 21-31, 2026
|
9%
Share of territory at alert level, the most severe
July 21-31, 2026
|
Source: JRC, press release of August 12, 2026.
Comparing this episode with the two most recent reference years places it in an intermediate position. Those two summers had, on the same dates, more territory under drought than this August, but they reached their peak considerably later in the season:
| Year | Territory under some degree of drought (EU + UK) | Territory at alert level | Seasonal peak |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 54% | 3% | 6% in late August |
| 2022 | 60% | 11% | 18% in mid-August |
| 2026 (July 21-31) | 50% | 9% | — |
Source: JRC, press release of August 12, 2026.
The drought situation map maintained by the JRC, with details as of late July, pinpoints where the alert is concentrated: southeastern UK, France, southern Germany, Switzerland, northern Italy, the entire Danube basin — Hungary and parts of Czechia, Slovakia, Austria, Serbia and Romania — and pockets of northeastern Spain, Slovenia and the central Balkans, while early-warning conditions also extend to Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK and Ireland.
Combined Drought Indicator (CDI) in Europe, third dekad of July 2026. © EU, 2026. Source: European Drought Observatory, Copernicus EMS.
What July had already shown
The JRC’s July report, the direct precursor to this update, had already documented how the situation reached the lows confirmed in August. On the Po, the river basin authority (ADBPO) declared a hydrological severity scenario of level 6 out of 7, with saltwater intrusion from the Adriatic into the delta and irrigation canals; the August 12 briefing confirms the basin remains under severe hydrological stress.
On the Danube, water levels had fallen to a historic low near the Serbian border, at Baja and Mohács, causing problems for civil navigation and ferries, and falling below operating limits for deep-draft vessels; Lake Velence, Hungary’s third-largest lake, dropped by nearly a meter, to the point where it could be crossed on foot as an experiment. Downstream, in Romania, commercial and tourist navigation on the river was halted and fields were left without irrigation water. This disruption to Danube navigation and to water supply in Hungary and Romania, the August 12 briefing notes, was still ongoing in recent days.
Energy and crops, under the same flow
Low river flow is also affecting power generation. In June, France shut down three nuclear reactors and operated eight others at reduced capacity because of the state of the cooling water, while several British gas plants recorded shutdowns due to thermal stress on equipment. This pressure on nuclear and hydroelectric power generation, the August 12 briefing notes, persists today along the Danube and Rhine corridor.
The EU Space Support Office’s publication on the record-low flows adds that on the Danube, low flow is complicating cooling at the Paks nuclear power plant in Hungary; that on the Rhine, falling water levels are limiting freight transport and affecting central Europe’s industrial supply chains; and that on the Po, the pressure falls on irrigation, hydroelectric generation and freshwater availability.
Water stress is also cutting into harvests: the JRC’s MARS bulletin, published on July 27, puts the overall cereal balance 1% below the five-year average:
| Crop | Change from previous month |
|---|---|
| Winter cereals (EU average) | between -1% and -4% |
| Grain maize and sunflower (summer crops) | between -6% and -7% |
| Overall cereal balance versus the five-year average | -1% |
Source: JRC, MARS bulletin of July 27, 2026, cited in the August 12 press release.
The response: COP17 and water resilience
The European Commission called on August 14 for stronger global action to restore degraded soil, strengthen drought resilience and protect water resources, ahead of the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (COP17), being held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, until August 28. European Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and Competitive Circular Economy Jessika Roswall summed up the diagnosis: drought and water scarcity are already threatening lives, health, economies and ecosystems within and beyond the EU, and the stated goal is to move from managing emergencies to building resilience before crises hit. The Commission links this work to the European Water Resilience Strategy which, as Roswall told Smart Water Magazine on its first anniversary, has already mobilized €3.1 billion prioritized by member states and €5 billion from the EIB’s water program, and supports early-warning monitoring systems based on Copernicus data — the same data underpinning Europe’s tracking of rainfall, soil moisture and river flow.
The outlook through September
The August 12 briefing also includes the seasonal forecast for the July-September quarter from the set of eight systems feeding the Copernicus Climate Change Service: much drier than usual conditions in west-central Europe and southern Scandinavia, with an added risk of further heatwaves across most of the continent, and above-normal rainfall in the Mediterranean area. For August, the forecast from the European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) pointed to low or extremely low flows in France, the Alpine region, eastern Europe, the Baltic area and southern UK, with the Iberian Peninsula, central and southern Italy, Greece, Turkey and much of Scandinavia as exceptions showing normal or above-normal flows.
That corridor running from France, where drought has already left more than 40,000 people with tap water cuts and 94% of the population under restrictions, to Hungary now concentrates the lowest flows, compromised power generation and shrinking harvests.
