If the well runs dry — climate change adaptation and water

Extremes of heat and drought, rain and flooding are affecting many parts of Europe.

Last summer, while Spanish daily newspaper El Pais ran photographs of dry riverbeds, the Guardian in Britain ran alarming headlines about floods. While the local government in Barcelona made plans to import water by ship, the British government assessed its flood defences.

There are many causes but climate change is expected to increase both the frequency and the severity of these events.