Drought affected 156,703 square kilometres of EU land in 2024.
The measure tracks areas where soils have too little moisture during the growing season, which can reduce how well vegetation grows, Eurostat said in a release on Wednesday.
Drought-affected land has varied widely over the past decade, with spikes recorded in 2018 and 2022.
The affected area reached 520,817 km² in 2018 and 558,313 km² in 2022.
Despite lower levels in 2023 and 2024, the 10-year moving average indicates the drought-affected area has increased over time.
Forest cover across the EU
Eurostat also reported that forests covered 39.0% of the EU’s land area in 2023.
Forests covered more than half the land area in five EU countries: Finland (66.5%), Sweden (62.4%), Slovenia (58.2%), Estonia (54.1%) and Latvia (53.4%).
Malta had the smallest share of forest cover at 4.3%, followed by the Netherlands at 9.7% and Ireland at 11.8%.
The figures were published as part of Eurostat’s monitoring of the EU’s progress towards the UN sustainable development goal on “life on land”, and were released ahead of International Mother Earth Day on 22 April, it said.
