How in Belgium there are water shortages after 3 weeks of good weather and Spain/Italy,.. where the sun always shines there doesn’t seem to be that big of an issue

Question

How in Belgium there are water shortages after 3 weeks of good weather and Spain/Italy,.. where the sun always shines there doesn’t seem to be that big of an issue

In: 3

Answer 1

Belgium (especially |landers) has lots of people living in a very small country. So already you have high water demand. Then the water supply infrastructure is built for ‘normal’ Belgian weather (we expect rain on a regular basis) so extended periods of draught screw that up.
And of course Belgium (again, especially Flanders) is basically one big slab of concrete with barely any nature left. Any rain that does fall down goes into the sewers or evaporates. Therefore the soil doesn’t contain as much water as it needs to survive several weeks without rain, so we need to water our lawns, increasing water demand even further.