Europe begins to run short of water

Pavol Stracansky in IPS: Half of the Czech Republic’s population could face water shortages because of climate change, a top climate change expert has warned. The country has become one of the driest in the EU, according to local media, and climatologists say the land, and crucial underground water supplies, are drying up.

Professor Michal Marek, head of the EU-funded CzechGlobe climate change research project, told IPS: "The Czech Republic is already seeing the effects of climate change in more frequent extreme weather events and changes in biodiversity.

"But possibly the most important change is in the increasing drying out of the landscape as drier periods get longer and are followed by bursts of intense rainfall which the dry soil cannot absorb. This has a very significant effect on underground water supplies."

Climatologists and meteorologists in central Europe have said that the region is seeing more and more extreme weather including long periods of dry and hot weather in the summer, severe flooding and bitter winter weather.

While not all parts of central and Eastern Europe will necessarily have the same problems as the Czech Republic with underground water supplies because of local geological conditions and other factors, heavy rains falling on ground dried out by long periods of hot weather and unable to absorb water can increase the risk of flooding.

Poland, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria and Germany have all been hit by devastating floods in the last two years….

Warsaw braces for flood, Slovakia and Hungary reel

Terra Daily via Agence France-Presse: Warsaw braced Monday for a new flood crest on the mighty Vistula river, as Budapest sandbagged its tourist quarter against the swollen Danube and Slovakia reeled from its worst flood in centuries. Heavy rains pounding central and eastern Europe have broken defences all along the Vistula, Poland's largest river which winds from the mountainous south to the Baltic Sea in the north, causing weeks of flooding.

The crest, or high point of the flood, is moving north and is forecast to surge into the Polish capital in the early hours of Wednesday, two weeks after a first giant wave washed through the capital. "The second large wave will arrive in Warsaw around 0300 CET (0100 GMT) at 7.8 metres (8.5 yards)," Mieczyslaw Ostojski, head of the IMGW weather institute, told reporters.

Warsaw officials launched a new alert for the city of two million, which was spared serious damage from the flood in May….

This image, taken by astronauts on-board the International Space Station, shows widespread flooding along the Vistula River in south-eastern Poland. Several towns have been completely or partially inundated including Gorzyce, Sokolniki, and Trześń in addition to large numbers of agricultural fields (normally green as visible at image top and bottom right).

Slovak ecologists slam oil pipe plan in unique water reservoir

Energy Daily via Agence France-Press: Plans for an oil pipeline through central Europe's largest drinking water reservoir in southwestern Slovakia have sparked outrage among Slovak environmentalists and water companies alike. Slovak state-owned downstream oil company Transpetrol is planning to connect Austria to the Druzhba pipeline -- pumping Russian oil to central Europe -- via a connector passing through the Zitny ostrov (Rye Island) protected area.

But the 1,900-square-kilometre island on the Danube river contains some 10 billion cubic metres of high-quality drinking water reserves. "An oil pipeline leading through Zitny ostrov would endanger a unique and irreplaceable drinking-water resource for Bratislava and surrounding regions," Zenon Mikle, spokesman for a company supplying water to the Slovak capital, told AFP.

Transpetrol and Austrian downstream oil giant OMV expect to start building the 62-kilometre (39-mile) pipeline connecting Druzhba and the Trans-Alpine pipeline in 2012. Slovakia, which depends on Russia for 98 percent of its oil supplies, accounting for about 5.5 million tonnes per year, is betting on the pipeline as an alternative source in case Russia decides to halt supplies through Druzhba.

The country has been trying to diversify its energy sources after it was left without oil supplies for three days in January 2007 when Russia interrupted deliveries following an energy dispute between Moscow and Belarussian authorities in Minsk….