Watching Rivers Dry Up

In February I walked or ran along the Asse river that runs from the Jura down towards Nyon and it was flooding. Walking paths had to be diverted and trees found themselves surrounded by water like individual islands. I walked by the same river during my daily walk yesterday and the opposite has now occurred.

The river that had flooded and turned into islands is now just a trickle. You can walk to the middle of the river without getting your socks wet. Having said this, having waterproof shoes does help keep socks dry. The point is that the layer of water is so shallow that you can walk to the middle of the river, take a picture, and walk back to the path, without getting wet.

Some people were commenting about the beautiful weather this September. It doesn’t feel beautiful to me. To me it feels like we never get rain. An article, a few days ago, by the BBC, said that it needs to rain non-stop for seven months to bring us back to normal water levels in England.

In Switzerland I think we’re lacking about three months of rainfall.

You might think, “So stop being negative, and enjoy the fantastic late Summer weather, and I would agree, if I was obsessed with cycling like I was last year. Running doesn’t require the same splendind weather. Whether it’s raining, or sunny, running is almost the same.

Between Eysins and Nyon there is a sugarbeet field that was not harvested. They simply plowed the sugar beet back into the soil and sowed the next crop. When it doesn’t rain, nothing grows, and if nothing grows then crops fail.

The irony is that sunflowers were really early this year, as were two or three other crops. They were lucky, because there was plenty of rain, and thus plenty of growth.

Almost the entirety of Switzlerland is at “Drought level 4”. The lake at the Vallée de Joux is visibly lower than usual, and small rivers are almost dry. Photos from certain waterfalls in France shows that they are dry, with no water flowing.

Some people celebrate the good weather, and the opportunities it presents for cycling and more, but crops have failed, rivers are drying up, lakes are emptying, and despite being mid-september rain is still weeks away.