According to a new study by the European Drought Observatory, drought could affect about 60 percent of the EU and Britain, intensifying Europe's record heat wave this summer caused by climate change, Axios reports.
The EU climate change service Copernicus notes "increased fire danger due to lack of rain and associated dry vegetation combined with high temperatures," as wildfires continue to rage across Europe.
Meanwhile, dry weather conditions are expected to persist in many European countries in August and September, exacerbating "an already very critical situation," the European Drought Observatory of the European Commission noted in July.
According to the observatory, this will "worsen the severity of the drought and its impact on agriculture, energy and water supplies."
The European Drought Observatory examined data for a 10-day period near the end of July and found that by the middle of the month, 45 percent of the EU was under a drought warning and 15 percent was in a "red alert" state with acute water shortages.
In the United Kingdom, where data from the Bureau of Meteorology show that the English regions of East Anglia, the southeast and the south faced a dry July due to a historic heat wave, the country's Center for Ecology and Hydrology warned that the drought is likely to continue.
"Droughts have become our reality this summer," Virginius Sinkevičius, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, wrote on Twitter Tuesday.
Countries including France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands are facing water shortages and river beds across Europe are drying up. Drought conditions are seriously affecting energy production, agriculture and river transportation.
For example, 100 municipalities in France have no running water, Rhine levels in Germany and France are so low that the transportation of goods is threatened, and the Netherlands is "officially facing a water shortage," Sinkevičius noted.
"Restoring nature is the best solution to change that," he added.
Another heat wave is forecast to hit northwest and central Europe this week.
The weather bureau issued a yellow heat warning for much of southern England and parts of Wales Thursday through Sunday after its first extreme heat warning last month.
