Spain, Portugal dryness 'unprecedented' in 1,200 years | Hacker News Reader

Spain, Portugal dryness 'unprecedented' in 1,200 years

phys.org

38 pointspolitelemon10 comments

The real problem is not less rainfall but ever growing expansion of unsustainable agriculture in these regions. For instance in Southern Spain there are countless illegal boreholes and this number is growing every year [0]. Every time I visit this region (yearly) I'm shocked by the expansion of arable land.

[0] https://www.wwf.eu/?68900/Spain-sucked-dry-by-illegal-water-...

Meanwhile Eastern Australia continues it's winter of "unprecedented" rain and severe flooding.

I think we're going to hear a lot more of "precedented" in the years to come.

They could just collect the water in oil tanks and ship it to Europe. /s

Welcome to the future, 50 years too early.

Didn’t they say the results are already taking effect?

If I was going to buy an olive farm should I consider buying it further north away from the famous olive growing southern Andalusian region in preparation for climate change or is it really just a scare story?

Great article to a thx for posting

> If I was going to buy an olive farm should I consider buying it further north

if it is any indication, Champagne companies have for years been buying land in southern England and planting vineyards there as the optimal climate zone for those grapes has shifted north.

This is happening everywhere in borderline areas where irrigation was essential to productive farming. Nowhere is "safe", but going to more temperate areas is likely the best option.

A lot of countries have maps of how climate change will impact every area; I'd suggest you look there to see if they have that info.

Not sure about country specific, but the IPCC have a climate impact assessment tool: https://interactive-atlas.ipcc.ch/

Maybe I need to get out more, but I was thinking watching the first video on that page, why does this make me feel like I'm in some dystopian sci-fi game/movie and then I realised the voice and presentation style reminded me of the ingame videos from Doom 3 :).

> This is happening everywhere in borderline areas where irrigation was essential to productive farming. Nowhere is "safe", but going to more temperate areas is likely the best option.

So that's why Sweden and Finland joined NATO. United Fruit Company is moving north.

Vineyards don't seem such a stable long term investment anymore...

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