The procession in Perpignan in southern France has little to do with folklore or the cultivation of religious customs, but the parade will certainly cause a stir. For the first time in 150 years, farmers and Catholic clergy set off together in the city near the Spanish border on Saturday to ask the patron saint of farmers in the Catalan region for rain. It is urgent, because for months very little rain has fallen in the already dry region. The situation is similar in large parts of France, groundwater reserves are depleted and the government is alarmed. Is there a threat of a second drought summer after 2022?
The rain balance for the winter months, at least, is devastating: Since the beginning of weather records in 1959, there has never been such long-lasting rain in France in winter, reported the weather service Météo France. This led to a remarkable drying out of the soils, which had already been weakened by the drought in the summer of 2022. Rainfall in March has now improved the situation in part of France. In the south of the country, however, it is still drier than normal, Météo France said.
Restrictions to save water
According to meteorologists, the immediate trigger of the recent dry spell was a high-pressure area that kept precipitation away from France for weeks. However, as a study published in February by the French National Research Organisation (CNRS) shows, the rise in temperature in connection with climate change in Europe is leading to an expansion of the scope and extent of high-pressure areas – with increasing drought as a result.
Some departments, especially in the south of France, have already imposed restrictions. Watering gardens and sports stadiums, filling swimming pools or washing cars were banned – an unprecedented restriction for the time of year. President Emmanuel Macron called for national water conservation. "We have a dry winter and, at the crucial moment, too little rain to replenish our groundwater reserves," Macron said. "So we know that, like last summer, we will face problems of scarcity." Instead of regulating scarce water at short notice, it is important to plan early.
The call for help to the church in Perpignan, but to pray for rain with a procession, comes from winegrower Georges Puig. "It's raining everywhere in France, except me," he complained recently. As the first vicar of Saint-Jean Baptiste Cathedral, Abbé Christophe Lefebvre, said, the procession leads from the cathedral via the historic city gate to the river Têt. Relics of St. Galderic, the patron saint of peasants, are carried. With the relics you want to stand in the almost dried out riverbed. "The water is only 50 centimetres deep, so we can get in with rubber boots," says Lefebvre. The procession revives a Visigothic tradition from the Middle Ages.
The increasing dry periods are causing problems for winegrowers in the Mediterranean. The orientation of viticulture in the face of climate change had already dedicated a study to the French Viticulture Institute in 2021. One of the recommendations is that winegrowers adapt their production and water use on the basis of better regional climate data. It is also recommended to cultivate more climate-resistant vines and to take steps to make viticulture as climate-neutral as possible. In the long term, France's wine sector must adapt to the necessary adaptations to climate change, it was recently said from the Ministry of Agriculture in Paris. The government wants to help create a strategy.
Drought hotspots in Europe
In the long term, the drought trends of recent years are likely to become entrenched. On the one hand, various climate projections show that more intense and frequent extreme weather events can be expected by the end of the 21st century. On the other hand, certain hotspots will emerge that will be particularly affected. Hotspots are regions that undergo major changes in precipitation, for example. About a year ago, researchers at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich published a study that uses a complex model to investigate the effects of strong global warming on droughts in Europe. They have found out that there will be big differences in drought in Europe. The closer the end of the century comes, the drier it gets. There will be hotspots everywhere, but especially in Spain, Portugal, France – and the Alps. At that time, the researchers still assumed that Spain and Portugal were the only regions in Europe to reduce precipitation in winter. After such a winter, France could possibly be counted among them.