Dutch government declares water shortage due to drought

AMSTERDAM, Aug 3 (Reuters) -The Dutch government on Wednesday declared a water shortage, following an unusually dry summer with no rain forecast for the coming two weeks.

Brutal heatwaves gripped large parts of Europe and the United States last month, bringing about calls for more efforts to tackle global warming, which scientists say makes spells of extremely hot weather more frequent and deadly.

With two-thirds of the Dutch population living below sea level, droughts can quickly become an acute problem in the Netherlands, leading to rivers silting up and hampering water traffic.

A further problem arises from dikes drying out - many require the weight of water itself to remain strong.

“We have been seeing it get drier in the Netherlands for several weeks now because of evaporation in our own country and very low river flows from abroad,” said Michele Blom of the country’s Public Works and Water Management agency, appointed to oversee a drought task-force.