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The 2022 European drought has underscored critical deficiencies in European water management. This paper explores these shortcomings and suggests a way forward for European drought risk management. Data for this study was gathered through a continent-wide survey of water managers involved in this event. The survey collected 481 responses from 30 European countries and is comprised of 19 questions concerning sectorial impact in the regions of the responders and drought risk management practices of their organizations. Information from the survey is enriched with climate-related information to offer a comprehensive overview of drought risk management in Europe. Our research focuses on four key aspects: the increasing risk of drought, its spatial and temporal impacts, current drought risk management approaches, and the evolution of drought risk management across the continent. Our findings reveal a consensus on the growing risk of drought, which is confounded by the rising frequency and intensity of droughts. While the 2022 event affected most of the continent, our findings show significant regional disparities in drought risk management capacity among the various countries. Our analysis indicates that current drought risk management measures often rely on short-term operational concerns, particularly in agriculture-dominated economies, leading to potentially maladaptive practices. An overall positive trend in drought risk management, with organizations showing increased awareness and preparedness, indicates how this crisis can be the ideal moment to mainstream European-wide drought risk management. Consequently, we advocate for a European Drought Directive, to harmonize and enforce drought risk management policies across the continent. This directive should promote a systemic, integrated, and long-term risk management perspective. The directive should also set clear guidelines for drought risk management at the national level and for cross-boundary drought collaboration.

Droughts in Europe are becoming increasingly frequent and severe, with the 2022 drought surpassing previous records and causing widespread socio-economic impacts. This study employs a Europe-wide survey that integrates data from 481 respondents from 30 European countries, involved in the management of the 2022 European drought, together with hydroclimatic data (i.e., Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index; SPEI), to provide a holistic assessment of the effect of drought preparedness on response effectiveness and timeliness during the 2022 drought through statistical methods. It specifically assesses the role of forecasting systems and Drought Management Plans (DMPs) in improving preparedness and in facilitating more effective and timely responses. Additionally, the study investigates how drought management practices and awareness have evolved as a consequence of the 2018 European drought and how recent experiences shape water managers’ perceptions. The findings emphasize the urgent need for a standardized, continent-wide drought risk management coordination to address the multifaceted nature of drought risk by integrating climatic and societal factors, and advocates for a Drought Directive as a means to achieve it. This research aims to inform policy development towards sustainable and holistic drought risk management, highlighting the crucial roles of preparedness, awareness, and adaptive strategies in mitigating future drought impacts.

Developing and implementing climate adaptation measures in complex socio-ecological systems can lead to unintended consequences, especially when those systems are undergoing rapid hydro-climatic and socio-economic change. In these dynamic contexts, a systemic approach can make the difference between adaptive and maladaptive outcomes. This paper focuses on the use of climate services, often touted as no-regret solutions, and their potential to generate maladaptation. We explored the interactions between climate services and adaptation/maladaptation across five case studies affected by different types of natural hazards and characterized by a range of hydro-climatic and socio-economic conditions. Using system archetypes, we show how climate services can play a role in both producing and preventing maladaptation. The dynamics explored through system archetypes are: i) “fixes that fail”, where short-sighted solutions fail to address the root causes of a problem; ii) “band aid solutions”, where the benefits brought about in the short-term come at the expenses of delaying long-term adaptive actions; and iii) “success to the successful”, where some groups increasingly benefit from climate services at the expenses of other groups. We demonstrate how these dynamics constitute maladaptive processes, as well as identifying the tools and theories that can be used in this type of assessment. Finally, we provide a framework and recommendations to guide the ex-ante assessment of maladaptation risk when designing and implementing climate services.

Climate services play a central role in adaptation strategies to water-related risks, yet the long-term implications of relying on different types of climate information remain poorly understood. This paper presents a system dynamics model that explores how short-term and long-term climate services influence adaptation trajectories balancing agricultural production and wealth generation with water management and ecosystem protection. We apply the model to a synthetic case study where water scarcity poses the main risk for agriculture, considering precipitation forecasts as the main climate service. Short-term climate services (e.g. sub-seasonal forecasts) prioritize immediate risks and can drive reactive adaptation, such as rapid reservoir expansion and agricultural intensification. Long-term climate services (e.g. climate projections), by contrast, can support strategic planning and promote transformative measures, such as ecological restoration. Our model shows trade-offs between rapid wealth generation and long-term sustainability. Scenarios dominated by short-term climate services lead to faster economic growth, but also frequent water crises and potential system collapse. In contrast, reliance on long-term climate services can help build resilience and prevent collapse, but lead to slower returns. Intermediate scenarios can avoid the worst outcomes, though they remain unstable and highly sensitive to climatic variability and shocks. Under climate change, increased variability in water recharge amplifies the demand for reactive measures, reinforcing short-term feedbacks and amplifying the risk of maladaptation. These findings highlight the importance of providing adaptation planners with long-term climate services that support the development of sustainable options while reducing the pressure of immediate threats. The model offers a conceptual framework for anticipating maladaptive patterns and emphasizes the need to balance short- and long-term objectives in coping with climate change. 

Climate services are increasingly promoted as essential tools to support climate change adaptation by providing timely and actionable climate information. However, despite their potential, climate services often fall short of delivering transformative adaptation outcomes as they do not meet the usability needs of stakeholders. In this paper, we investigate how pre-existing expectations about the form of climate services influence their design and delivery, possibly limiting innovation and missing the potential of meeting the complex needs of diverse users. Drawing on the Rasmussen Abstraction Hierarchy, we analyze prominent definitions of climate services to understand how form, function, and purpose are embedded in conceptualizations of climate services. Building on this analysis, we conduct a survey among researchers, developers, and practitioners involved in European climate service-related projects. The results reveal a significant bias toward conventional forms of climate services (typically digital, data-driven tools) regardless of whether they meet users’ functional or adaptive needs. We further show that professional expertise can influence what respondents recognize as a climate service, with practitioners often privileging scientific-technocratic approaches over locally embedded or experimental formats. No significant difference is observed across academic disciplines, putting into question whether interdisciplinarity alone is sufficient to deliver change. These findings suggest that rigid expectations around the format of climate services hinder the field’s ability to foster purpose-driven, inclusive, and transformative adaptation. We argue for a more pluralistic and reflexive understanding of climate services that prioritizes adaptive function and context-specific relevance over conformity to established forms, as well as embracing transdisciplinarity and co-creation.