I myself am shocked by the dryness in Central Europe when I know the reality of the Netherlands, Luxembourg, or Western Germany.
This shock of dryness has led me once again to reflect on cultural principles in Central Europe and Western Europe.
Some might say it is due to climate change. In reality, however, it is not only about climate itself, but about the way the landscape has been modified and managed over decades.
I do not want to go into the reasons again; I am simply sharing my shock at how unbearable it feels…
ChatGPT also knows only statistics, and therefore knows about the climate and landscape only from a virtual environments, but this piece is something I see in different landscapes of Europe.
“One of the biggest problems of the Central European landscape is its low water retention capacity. During the last century, large-scale interventions in nature took place across Central Europe:
* rivers were straightened,
* wetlands were drained,
* drainage systems were built,
* fields were merged into enormous agricultural plots.
These changes were intended to increase agricultural efficiency. Water was supposed to drain from the fields as quickly as possible so that machinery could operate without limitations. In the long term, however, this approach caused the landscape to stop retaining water.
Today, when heavy rain comes, the water often:
* quickly runs off the surface,
* flows into rivers,
* does not soak deeply into the soil.
The result is that the landscape dries out rapidly during hot periods.”
