Relentless UK heatwaves turn ‘green and pleasant land’ brown

Half of England and the whole of Wales are officially in drought and July is set to be the driest month on record as extreme heat intensified by the climate crisis continues to grip the UK and Europe this summer. The announcements this week by England’s Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales mark the third such event over the past five years, and come in the wake of four record-breaking heatwaves since May which have fuelled huge wildfires and left farmers, wildlife and protected habitats running out of water. England had just 7% of the long-term average rainfall for July and southern England just 1%, damaging greenery in parks, protected land and sports fields. The dry spell has also led to shrinking rivers and lakes: the Thames at Reading has recorded its lowest ever level. Water companies are not currently expecting a threat to drinking water supplies, as record winter rainfall means reservoirs are still close to expected levels, but approximately 23 million people across England and Wales are under a hosepipe ban. The visible impact is impossible to ignore: vast swathes of William Blake’s “green and pleasant land” are now brown and dry. The Met Office predicts that the climate crisis will make UK summers 1C-6C (1.8F-10.8F) hotter and up to 60% drier by 2070, compared with 1990. Both adaptation to and mitigation of the effects of a warming planet are urgently needed, said Dr Chloe Brimicombe, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford. “This summer has been a compounding of dry weather,” said Brimicombe, “leading to droughts and hot weather and high temperatures leading to heatwaves with these conditions also leading to wildfires. It is a strong indication that we need better long-term planning. Climate change is not a future problem; it’s a challenge for right now.” As the climate crisis supercharges “whiplash” wet-then-dry weather, the UK and Europe are seeing back-to-back heatwaves that encourage vegetation to grow but then dry it out, producing ideal fuel for fires. Firefighters have responded to 393 wildfires across England and Wales in July, making it the busiest month on record and placing significant pressure on crews and resources. Hundreds of people have already been evacuated owing to the threat of fire, compared with approximately 50 in 2025 – the worst year for wildfires on record so far. Cairngorms national park in the Scottish Highlands has suffered the worst fires in living memory, while smoke from fires in the Rhinogydd mountains in north Wales could be seen from space. Statistics for July are not available yet, but North Wales Fire and Rescue Service said it recorded 48 wild, grassland, woodland and crop fires in June, up 47% on the same month in 2025. Farmers across the country have been forced to harvest early or are worried about losing crops if they run out of water. Riverford Organic Farmers in Buckfastleigh, Devon takes a long-term approach to water management and soil health, planning years in advance, but this growing season has been one of the hottest and driest the business remembers in the last 40 years. Luke King, the farm’s supply chain and technical director, said: “Scarcity of water has become a big challenge for us, but what has compounded this has been the heat stress on plants. All but one of our [four] reservoirs have now run dry, which is something we’d never normally expect so early in the season. What we currently have is no longer sufficient.” The team has begun harvesting earlier in the day to protect crops and pickers, and dedicate lots of time and resources to irrigation. “Even with irrigation, you can’t water everything at once,” said King, “so difficult decisions have to be made about prioritising crops and, even with water, if the temperature is too high the water can evaporate very quickly.” Lost archaeological sites have been rediscovered in dried-out crop and grassland around the country, including neolithic, bronze and iron age structures and practice trenches from the first world war. Roman-era buildings have been uncovered at Caerhun Roman fort in Conwy, while the outline of an ornate 17th-century garden at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire is visible once again after first being revealed by dry weather in 2018 and 2022. In London’s parks – crucial green spaces in a densely populated and emission-high city – people have still tried to enjoy the summer sunshine despite the parched conditions. The Royal Borough of Greenwich, which includes the large park of the same name, as well as open green spaces such as the commons at Blackheath and Woolwich, is hoping normal rainfall will rehydrate its parched green spaces. A councillor, Adel Khaireh, said: “We’re particularly grateful to local people such as the network of Friends of Parks groups who help us water trees and plants across the borough, and support our iconic parks on a voluntary basis.”