Today the Guardian website has yet another article pushing the climate scare. A sensationalist headline (“Revealed: Europe’s water reserves drying up due to climate breakdown”) is followed by a sensationalist secondary headline (“Exclusive: UCL scientists find large swathes of southern Europe are drying up, with ‘far-reaching’ implications”).

As is so often the case with Guardian articles, however, it seeks to pin a problem on climate change that undoubtedly has many causes, of which climate change may well be the least important – assuming it’s relevant at all.

This time (as is evident from the headlines above) the scare story is about diminishing water storage in parts of Europe – specifically, groundwater reserves. What is the sensational new information that justifies the headlines? This, apparently:

Scientists at University College London (UCL), working with Watershed Investigations and the Guardian, analysed 2002–24 data from satellites, which track changes in Earth’s gravitational field.

Because water is heavy, shifts in groundwater, rivers, lakes, soil moisture and glaciers show up in the signal, allowing the satellites to effectively “weigh” how much water is stored.

Watershed Investigations’ website does not contain this report, so far as I can see, and the Guardian article provides no link to it. An internet search on my part has failed to locate it. This is disappointing, because I always seek to look at the original report in circumstances such as these, to see if the Guardian’s take is justified or not. This from July last year is the best I can find (from UCL, whose Professor Mohammad Shamsudduha, the article’s author, is also a leading light at Watershed).

Because I cannot find the original study, I will have to make do with just the Guardian article. It’s main claim is that while parts of western and north-western Europe are getting wetter, large parts of Europe are “drying out” – specifically “parts of the UK, Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Romania and Ukraine”.As ever, climate change (or, as the Guardian article puts it, “climate breakdown”, is to blame, and this “should be a “wake-up call” for politicians still sceptical about cutting emissions”.

Before analysing the article (and the significant gaps in it) let’s take a quick look at Watershed Investigations. A quick look is enough to establish that climate change fear-mongering runs through it like a stick of rock. The relevant section of its website tells us that:

Our generous funders are: Oak Foundation, European Climate Foundation, Sigrid Rausing Trust, Flotilla Foundation, Savitri Trust, Ashken Family Charitable Foundation, Christopher Parker, Ben Goldsmith, WildFish, Wildlife and Countryside Link, The Wildlife Trusts.

In other words, it receives a decent amount of funding from organisations determined to push the “climate crisis” narrative. Roger Harrabin is on the Advisory Board. So is Ruth Davis:

Ruth Davis is an advocate, writer and campaigner with over twenty years’ experience of influencing politics and policies on climate change and nature. She has a background in plant sciences and conservation, and has held senior roles at Plantlife, the RSPB and Greenpeace. She acted as an advisor to Defra and to the UK’s COP 26 UNFCCC Presidency team on climate and nature between 2017 and 2022. She has been involved in a wide range of international and domestic campaigns, including action to end the use of coal power in the UK…

Almost every article it produces is proudly shown on its website as having being publicised by the Guardian and the BBC. A section of its website is devoted to the so-called “climate crisis”.

Having said that, of course it does good work too, and I have no doubt everyone involved with it sincere in their intentions. I note that Feargal Sharkey is also on its Advisory Board. Most of us probably think rather well of his campaigning work. So, what’s my problem? It’s just that – as is so often the case – this Guardian article, based on unlinked-to research that we aren’t (yet) allowed to see, spins the climate crisis narrative without attempting to offer a deeper analysis.

A big play is made of droughts and changing rainfall patterns causing water shortages in places like the south east of England. Yet the article doesn’t mention, for instance, that no large potable reservoir has been built in the UK since Carsington Reservoir in Derbyshire around a third of a century ago. Since then the UK’s population has increased by more than 11 million. Similarly, in Spain, the last major reservoir project (the Alqueva Dam) was completed in 2002, since when its population has increased by around 8 million. The last major reservoir project completed in Italy (the Vajont Dam) was in 1960, since when its population has increased by around 9 million. One might have thought that this was a relevant factor.

As populations increase, so does the demand for food. In Spain, for instance, one study suggests that:

In the latter half of the twentieth century, Spanish agriculture witnessed sustained production growth…This growth predominantly occurred in the warm, sunny provinces of southern and eastern Spain, which specialized in high-value crops such as fruits, vegetables, and olive oil. Various factors have been identified in the scientific literature as contributors to this transformation, including technological innovations, the internationalization of Spanish agriculture, domestic development, and advancements in irrigation.

The study suggests that between 1962 and 2020 the growth in irrigated land area in Spain increased by an average of 1.24% per annum. That’s a lot of irrigation, and consequently must have involved a massive increase in water use. The Guardian article doesn’t mention that either.

Not surprisingly, then, if groundwater reserves are being depleted, it’s not so much because of declining rainfall as increasing extraction, as the Guardian article does acknowledge:

In south-east England…groundwater supplies about 70% of public water…groundwater abstractions [across the EU] increased by 6%, attributed to public water supply (18%) and farming (17%). It is a critical resource: across member states, groundwater accounted for 62% of the total public water supply and 33% of agricultural water demands during 2022.

Another issue is Artificial Intelligence and datacentres, which don’t merit a mention in the Guardian article. According to Mordor Intelligence:

The Europe data center [sic] water consumption market stood at 0.82 trillion liters [sic] in 2025 and is forecast to reach 1.58 trillion liters [sic] by 2030, advancing at a 14.02% CAGR. Growing hyperscale build-outs for AI workloads, mandatory EU disclosure of water usage effectiveness, and the rapid shift toward liquid and immersion cooling are the core forces lifting demand.

One might have thought that worthy of mention too.

The final irony, however, is that concentrated solar power (CSP) plants, which work best in hot and sunny locations, where water supply is scarcest, need a lot of water. Wikipedia describes Spain as a world leader in this area. Currently it has 50 of these. None have been added since 2013 due to a moratorium, but it now has ambitious plans to expand their use. According to the European Commission’s Science4EU website (Research and Innovation section):

Unlike conventional gas- or coal-fired power stations, CSP plants use mirrors to concentrate solar energy to heat water and convert it into steam; this is then used to turn turbines to produce electricity. Once the steam has done its job, it has to be cooled to condense back into water and start the steam cycle again.

This cooling process accounts for much of the water consumed by CSP plants through evaporation and so-called drift and blow-down losses. As a result, they can use as much as 3 500 litres of water for each megawatt hour of electricity they generate, compared to around 1 000 litres/MWh for modern natural gas-fired power plants.

In fairness, CSP plants are at the extreme end of the scale for water use. Photovoltaic solar panels use a lot less, mostly modest amounts of water in keeping the panels clean. It’s difficult to obtain a definitive answer to the question of exactly how much water they use, with sceptic websites suggesting lots, and solar companies and enthusiasts suggesting very little. And so I rather lazily fall back on AI, which says:

Water consumption for cleaning:

This varies based on local conditions like dust, rain, and pollution.

Estimates range from 20-150 liters per megawatt-hour (MWh).

One study in the USA found an average water use of 863 L/MWh for cleaning across several projects.

Overall life cycle water consumption (including manufacturing) is around 20,419 L per kW installed capacity.

Whatever the correct answer, it is clearly far from negligible. Once more, we find three things:

First, a Guardian article reporting on a study in a way which provides a one-sided and potentially misleading report.

Second, climate change being blamed for a problem with many other causes.

Finally, renewable technologies that we are supposed to adopt in order to “save the planet”, but which may in fact be making matters worse in a very direct way.