The drought in parts of France is so bad right now that some authorities have banned new home-building projects—for the next four years. Despite a severe housing shortage in France, new homes just aren’t worth the drain on water resources that construction, and eventual new residents, would cause, say nine communes in the south of the country.

法国部分地区的干旱现在非常严重，一些当局甚至已经禁止在未来四年新的住房建设项目。尽管法国住房严重短缺，但建造新住房所消耗的水资源和最终的新居民还是不值得。

It’s just one of many signs that Europe is running dry. “What we are looking at is something like a multiyear drought,” says Rohini Kumar of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany. Unusually low rainfall and snowfall was recorded this winter not just in France but also in the UK, Ireland, Switzerland, and parts of Italy and Germany. The current predicament follows European droughts in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2022.

这只是欧洲正在枯竭的众多迹象之一。德国亥姆霍兹环境研究中心的罗希尼·库马尔说：“现在的情况是连年干旱。”今年冬天，不仅在法国，而且在英国、爱尔兰、瑞士以及意大利和德国的部分地区，降雨量和降雪量都异常低。当前的困境是在2018年、2019年、2020年和2022年欧洲干旱之后出现的。

Last summer, drought exacerbated by record temperatures around the continent was in the headlines. The subsequent dry winter has meant that many aquifers—places underground that retain water—and surface reservoirs have not had a chance to recover. Now, summer beckons once again, and experts who spoke to WIRED are worried that a severe water shortage could threaten lives, industry, and biodiversity in a big way.

去年夏天，非洲大陆创纪录的气温加剧了干旱，这成为了头条新闻。随后的干燥冬季意味着许多蓄水层（地下蓄水的地方）和地表水库没有机会恢复。现在，夏天又一次向我们招手，接受《连线》杂志采访的专家们担心，严重的水资源短缺可能会在很大程度上威胁到生命、工业和生物多样性。

The European Drought Observatory tracks indicators of drought across the continent, including from satellite measurements, and suggests that vast regions are far drier than they should be. “Honestly, all over Central Europe, this issue, it’s a widespread problem,” says Carmelo Cammalleri at the Polytechnic University of Milan.

欧洲干旱观测站跟踪整个欧洲大陆的干旱指标，包括卫星测量数据，并表明，广大地区的干旱程度远远超过了应有的水平。“老实说，这个问题在整个中欧都很普遍。”米兰理工大学的卡梅洛·卡马雷里说。

He estimates that reservoirs in France and northern Italy are about 40 to 50 percent lower than they should be. The longest river in Italy, the Po, is 60 percent below its normal levels. Not only that, there is roughly half the usual snow on the Alps than would be expected for this time of year. That’s a huge problem, because much of Central Europe relies on meltwater from these famous mountains every spring. “The Alps are known as the water towers of Europe for a reason,” says Cammalleri.

他估计，法国和意大利北部的水库比正常水位低了大约40%到50%。意大利最长的河流波河的水位比正常水平低了60%。不仅如此，阿尔卑斯山的降雪量比往年同期的预期降雪量少了一半左右。这是个大问题，因为中欧大部分地区每年春天都依赖这些著名山脉的融水。“阿尔卑斯山被称为欧洲的水塔是有原因的，”卡马雷里说。

France has just experienced its driest winter for 60 years. In some places, you can find extreme examples of how people have been affected. Take the village of Coucouron in the south of the country, where a truck has had to deliver drinking water up to 10 times a day since July—without any hiatus during the supposedly wetter months.

法国刚刚经历了60年来最干燥的冬天。在一些地方，可以找到人们如何受到影响的极端例子。以该国南部的库库隆村为例，自7月以来，一辆卡车每天要运送饮用水多达10次，在本应多雨的月份里也没有中断。

The UK’s weather agency, the Met Office, estimates there’s a 10 percent chance of a wetter-than-average March, April, and May. Conversely, there’s a 30 percent chance that this period will be drier than average—and that is 1.5 times the normal chance at this time of year.

英国气象局估计，3月、4月和5月有10%的几率出现比平均水平更潮湿的天气。相反，这段时间有30%的可能性比平均水平更干燥，是每年同期正常可能性的1.5倍。