In drought-stricken France, tankers supply drinking water

Since early August, huge silver tanker trucks have been paying a visit to the town of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines in Alsace, eastern France, twice a week. They aren't delivering heating oil or milk, but drinking water from the nearby town of Liepvre.

Sainte-Marie, with its population of 5,000, is located in a green valley in the Vosges Mountains and usually relies on about 20 mountain springs for its water. But the flow rate has fallen after weeks of intense heat and drought.

Liepvre, just a few kilometers away, is connected to a larger water supply network that extends toward the Alsatian plain. Here, there is still enough water despite the drought but because there is no permanent connection between the two systems, tanker trucks are effectively functioning as a water pipeline on wheels.

According to the French government, more than 40,000 people have been affected by water cutoffs or supply disruptions this month, and 550,000 are at higher risk of losing stable access.

The drought has affected large parts of France and water restrictions have been put in place in many regions, but tanker trucks are only being used in certain areas. This depends on what sources or groundwater reserves a municipality relies on for water and whether it can easily switch to other resources.

More than a dozen municipalities in the Jura Mountains, further to the south in the department of Doubs, are also currently being supplied by tanker trucks.

Drought increasingly frequent in France

This situation is not new for France. In the summer of 2022, which was also exceptionally dry, tanker trucks were used to supply hundreds of municipalities with water. Others depended on bottled water.

Coucouron, a village in the Massif Central region of southern France with just under 800 residents, was severely affected.

Though it's located at a height of more than 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) in a region rich in water and where three major French rivers — the Loire, the Allier and the Ardeche, have their sources — an important spring ran dry after months of drought. Tanker trucks had to bring water to the villagers for months.

But drought wasn't the only reason for these problems. Experts discovered that there were several major leaks in the water supply network. Once they had been repaired, the village's water consumption dropped by about 40 cubic meters per day. A 6-kilometer-long (3.7-mile) pipeline linking to an additional water source is expected to bring more stability.

Coucouron is not an isolated case. On average, only about 79% of the water fed into supply networks in rural France reaches consumers. Nationwide, the average is around 84%. But repairs are slow, and currently only about 0.6% of pipes are replaced every year.

Extreme heat batters economy

Extreme heat and drought are also taking their toll on the economy. Monique Barbut, France's minister for the environmental transition, has estimated that the direct and indirect costs of this year's heat waves now could reach between €10 and 15 billion (up to $17.4 billion).

After the dry summer of 2022, President Emmanuel Macron declared water a national priority. A "Water Plan" unveiled in spring 2023 included more than 50 measures, including the target of a 10% reduction in water consumption by 2030 and plans to modernize the water supply network and fix leaks. Since then, some €1.4 billion has been spent on the national plan.

In 2023, authorities identified some 170 municipalities whose water systems lost more than half of the water supplied to them. Within three years, over 100 had managed to reduce their losses.

Saving water is not only a matter of tapping into additional water sources or repairing dilapidated pipes. The scarcer water becomes, the more competition there is for this precious resource. Households need drinking water, farmers need water for irrigation and factories also need it for production. Increasingly, the question is how to determine which uses should be restricted and prioritized in an emergency.

One-third of EU population lives with water scarcity

France isn't alone in being unable to cope with long periods of drought. According to the European Environment Agency, seasonal water scarcity and water stress affect roughly 30% of the European Union's land area and almost one-third of its population.

In 2025, the European Commission presented the first European Water Resilience Strategy, which outlines plans to increase water efficiency by at least 10% by 2030 and modernize infrastructure.

On the other side of the Rhine River in Germany, there is currently evidence in the Black Forest region that spring and groundwater levels are declining.

So far, the Badenova service company seems to have enough groundwater supplies. But several municipalities in the Dreisam Valley have asked the company to make preparations for transporting water by tanker truck, if need be.

Technology can't solve all problems

How Europe deals with increasing water scarcity depends heavily on its geography. Thanks to a network connecting lakes, canals, locks and pumps, the Netherlands can usually supply households with water from the Rhine and Meuse rivers. But this summer there has also been an official water shortage in that country, so additional freshwater is being stored and distributed strategically.

Southern Europe has long been planning for water shortages. Large reservoirs and long-distance pipelines have become standard in Spain, which also relies on seawater desalination processes in particularly arid regions.