Thuringia: Despite low levels: "Thuringia does not threaten to dry up"

The Thuringian rivers again carry too little water this year, the groundwater level is falling.

Thuringia: Despite low levels: "Thuringia does not threaten to dry up"

The Thuringian rivers again carry too little water this year, the groundwater level is falling. This can cause problems locally. However, the responsible office gives the all-clear for the entire Free State.

Jena (dpa/th) - Despite the currently low water levels, acute water shortages in Thuringia remain a rather local phenomenon, according to the responsible office. "Thuringia is not in danger of drying out," said a spokesman for the Thuringian State Office for the Environment, Mining and Nature Conservation on request. In contrast to Brandenburg, Thuringia is a water-rich state and will remain so for the foreseeable future. This is partly due to the geographical location with the low mountain ranges and the associated frequent rainfall.

Nevertheless, the office is currently recording low water levels almost everywhere in Bavaria. In June, at 28 gauges under review, the mean water discharges were undercut by an average of more than a quarter in a long-term comparison. The lowest levels since records began were even measured at three gauges.

The rivers in northern Thuringia (Helme, Zorge, Wipper) currently carry particularly little water. Values ​​below the state average were also measured on the upper Werra, the Leine, the Ilm, the upper Saale and the Loquitz. The Saale below the dams is doing a little better, as are some areas of the middle and lower Werra, the Weißen Elster and the Pleiße. So far, according to the agency, no rivers have dried up completely.

According to the office, the current dry period is also having an impact on groundwater. Since April, the levels have fallen sharply again in large parts of Thuringia, especially in western Thuringia and in the Thuringian Basin. In May, below-average water levels were recorded at 55 percent of the measuring points - and the trend is rising. In the long dry phase between May 2018 and June 2021, this value was even 70 percent. According to the information provided in Thuringia, more than half of the water requirement for the public drinking water supply is secured from groundwater.

The situation is comparable to the water levels in an average late summer or autumn, it said. But there were also similarly low levels in the weeks of June 2019 and 2020. In recent years, the effects of such low water phases have been observed again and again, said the spokesman. This included, for example, the partial drying up of water bodies, but also extremely low groundwater levels, some of which would have impaired local drinking water supplies. As an example, he named the fountain villages in Altenburger Land.

In principle, periods of low water are not unknown phenomena. "Rather, such events have been observed again and again since records began." Because of climate change and the associated extreme weather events that are to be expected more frequently, Thuringia has to deal more with local water shortage situations. In the past few weeks, a number of counties had already banned the withdrawal of water from rivers or lakes.

In the six large drinking water reservoirs, however, the low water is not yet noticeable. According to the Thuringian long-distance water supply, they recorded highs at the beginning of the hydrological summer half-year in May. The reason is the heavy precipitation in the winter months and the snow cover in Thuringia at the beginning of the year. According to the information, most of the large dams in Thuringia were still more than 90 percent full at the end of June.

But climate change is also noticeable in the dams: it has rained more in the past 30 years than in the previous phase. However, this precipitation tends to be concentrated in winter - in early summer, on the other hand, the drought is becoming more and more noticeable. The consequences are, among other things, larger water level fluctuations in the dams.