Luxembourg’s winter was too dry and the groundwater recharge is below average, Luxembourg’s water management administration warns, with spring looking sunny and warm Photo: Raymond Clement

Luxembourg’s winter was too dry and the groundwater recharge is below average, Luxembourg’s water management administration warns, with spring looking sunny and warm Photo: Raymond Clement

Monday officially marked the beginning of spring but as Luxembourg’s fauna is coming to life, groundwater levels are low with not enough ‘recharge’ over the winter, warns the water management administration.

Despite the July floods last year--which saturated the top soil layers, allowing groundwater to replenish--the recharge is 30% below average, said Brigitte Lambert of Luxembourg’s water management administration in an email.

“After the relatively wet summer things looked promising for a good recharge. The soil was well saturated at the end of October,” she said. But “especially in November and December it didn’t rain enough on the whole.”

For several years in a row now, the recharge hasn’t been satisfactory. A long and hot summer in 2020 left Luxembourg’s groundwater depleted and soil dried out to the deepest layers. The started late, not until January, with insufficient rain or snow at the start of 2021 to get levels up.

The situation is similar this year, with the recharge starting late--not until January--and the lack of snow a particular problem. “Snow, when is melts slowly and the ground isn’t frozen, soaks slowly into the soil.” Ideally, there would have been two to three weeks of snow, Lambert said. “This scenario allows that the recharge reaches normal to slightly above average levels.”

The summer’s wet conditions would have been the ideal basis for a wet autumn and winter in terms of groundwater replenishing, even if the seasons probably seemed grey and miserable enough for residents.

With temperatures now rising and nature coming back to life, the recharge will stagnate as little water will reach the lowest soil levels. Any rain will benefit the growing plants but not the groundwater.

“Temperature-wise this spring has been good until now; vegetation hasn’t really started. But it’s too dry. The winter wasn’t cold enough and too dry,” Lambert said.

The summer of 2021 was the second wettest on record, but this was largely due to record flooding in July. The year before, 2020, was the hottest year on record in Luxembourg since weather reporting began at the meteorological station in Findel.

The government had  the public to conserve water, saying they should not fill up swimming pools, wash cars or water lawns and gardens. Several communes issued orange warnings to restrict water use.