Deserts in Europe

Just heard about the ESA DesertWatch Initiative. Apparently there are and will be deserts in Europe. And Portugal that I live in is one of the country with highest risk of becoming more and more desert.

Quercus says that 36% of the country is already affected and at risk of becoming deserts, with 3/4 of that area at high susceptibility of becoming a desert. Mostly in the south were it does not rain so much and there is a big debacle with Spain regarding the use and access to the river water. Oddly also some parts in the north-east on the border to Spain are also at risk. See the page 17 in this pdf file.

Strange that Portugal would become a desert. I been down so I know it is dry very dry. Up here in north the problems right now seems to be do with to much water. Also, in the south there have a lot of floodings last week. "My" part is called Minho Verde - Green Verde because it is so green because of the plentiful rains in the winter, but even here it gets really dry in the summer. At 35-40C and no rain for a month or two it really dries up quickly. In way I am surprised that the water is not captured to a great extent than it is. The Douro river was 10m above normal levels in Porto two weeks ago. And Douro has many dams along its course.

Minho should have plenty of opportunity to capture and store water to a much greater extent than it has sofar. Much of the hydropower comes from Minho so much water is already stored but in large dams. It should be possible to each village to collect enough water for fire dams etc to cover the very local water need even in summer.