• Drought reveals old cemetery in Bosnia reservoir

    Dado Ruvic / Reuters

    The 70-year-old Sunken cemetery is seen after the Jablanicko lake dried up near Jablanica. The dams on the Neretva river near the lake feed a system that normally produces an average of 2,000 megawatt-hours of electricity per year, but the drought that began in August has shrunk output to just a quarter of that amount. The drought has also forced cash-strapped nations to import more power at higher prices. Bosnia, normally the one net power exporter in the region, paid 20 million Bosnian marka (14.4 million) to import electricity in January, compared with January 2011 when it earned 70 million marka from power exports.

    Dado Ruvic / Reuters

    Stranded boats are seen at the bottom of the dried Jablanicko lake.

    Reuters reports that this year's severe winter weather, which also strained the electric system, offers no relief from the drought:

    "I cannot recall when the lake has ever been so low," says Memidzan as his hand points to what is left of the reservoir, one of five that supply power to southern Bosnia.

    "There are no fish left here," he adds, standing on his boat house, stranded in the mud.

    Hydro power accounts for most of Albania's electricity output and about half of Bosnia's, followed by Croatia and Slovenia at 40 percent, Serbia at 30 percent and Montenegro at 17 percent. Kosovo mainly relies on coal.

  • Driest winter since 1940s raises red flags in Spain

    Miguel Riopa / AFP - Getty Images

    A fisherman sits by the border of the Portodemouros reservoir, some 60 km from Santiago de Compostela, Spain, on March 1. The reservoir has a low level of water due a prolonged drought.The driest winter in the last 40 years has raised red flags in Spain, where farmers face the threat of drought.

    According to Terra Daily:

    Miguel Riopa / AFP - Getty Images

    A picture taken on March 1, shows the Portodemouros reservoir, near the village of Brocos, Spain.

    At the beginning of 2011, water levels in Spain's reservoirs reached an average of 77.83% of total capacity. However, the lack of rain last year has now reduced the average to 62.01%. The droughts that Spain experiences year on year are one of the main concerns of agricultural workers who use up to 80% of a reservoir's water for their crops.

    A new study at the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT) has combined recorded data with the results from state-of-the-art regional climate change models to calculate the maximum length of droughts in detail.

    The results, which have been applied to the Segura river basin, show how "drought periods since the 1980s onwards have notably intensified," according to Sandra Garcia Galiano, one of the authors of the study.