Swiss researchers warn ‘mega-droughts’ are spreading around the world
Between 1980 and 2018, the global land area affected by prolonged droughts increased by an average of around 50,000 square kilometres per year, the study found.
Keystone-SDA
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening: Swiss researchers warn ‘mega-droughts’ are spreading around the world
"Mega-droughts" are increasing worldwide - becoming more frequent, hotter and more widespread over the past 40 years, a study published on Thursday shows.
This content was published on
2 minutes
Keystone-SDA
Deutsch
de
Schweizer Forscher warnen in Studie vor einer Zunahme an Dürren
Original
Between 1980 and 2018, prolonged droughts expanded the global land area affected by an average of around 50,000 square kilometres per year—an area bigger than Switzerland. Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL)External link reported this in a study published in the journal Science.
“Multi-year droughts cause enormous economic damage, for example in agriculture and power generation,” said Dirk Karger, head of the study, according to a WSL statement on Thursday.
The researchers explained that this has been caused by rising temperatures linked to climate change. These lead to greater fluctuations in precipitation and at the same time increase evaporation from the soil and vegetation.
Translated from French by DeepL/sb
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
Related Stories
Popular Stories
More
Swiss Politics
Will Switzerland finally do away with imputed rental-value tax on homeowners?
US says Switzerland can order fewer fighter jets amid cost hike
This content was published on
According to the American authorities, a possible reduction in the number of F-35 fighter jets ordered by Switzerland is possible to cushion the unexpected cost increase.
On wolves, ‘priority should be given to scare shots’, says expert
This content was published on
Wolf expert Jean-Marc Landry believes that Swiss Environment Minister Albert Rösti's decision to rely entirely on shooting is short-sighted.
A thousand demonstrators in Swiss capital demand climate justice
This content was published on
The climate crisis is exacerbating injustice around the world, and the current economic system benefits from colonial and patriarchal oppression, said one of the speakers.
Russian drones in Poland have ‘no impact’ on Switzerland: defence minister
This content was published on
According to Swiss Defence Minister Martin Pfister, the intrusion of Russian drones into Polish airspace "shows how unstable the situation in Europe is."
E-cars account for 10.5% of new registrations in the canton of Zug
This content was published on
Nowhere else in Switzerland are electric cars as popular as in Zug. Currently, 10.5 per cent of cars registered in the canton of Zug are purely electric, as new data from the online platform Energie Reporter and Energie Schweiz and Geoimpact show.
ETH climate researcher honoured with the German Environmental Award
This content was published on
Swiss climate researcher Sonia Isabelle Seneviratne from ETH Zurich receives the German Environmental Award 2025. She shares the prize, endowed with 500,000 euros, with the management duo of the steel galvanising company Zinq.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.