Brussels extended its code yellow drought alert on 5 August, with no end date attached. The extension came from the same coordination that issued the original warning in late July, Brussels Environment working with Vivaqua, the Port of Brussels and Safe.brussels, and the advice to residents is the same as it was three weeks ago: avoid washing cars, filling pools, cleaning pavements and terraces, and watering lawns and ornamental plants.
What justifies calling it an extension rather than a repeat is a second dataset that has nothing to do with rainfall in Brussels itself. A Flemish groundwater survey taken on 2 August found 81 percent of monitored sites at low or very low levels, with 56 percent very low and a further 25 percent low. Groundwater is a lagging indicator by nature. It falls only after weeks of a rainfall deficit have already worked their way down through the soil, which is why a figure like this arrives after the surface symptoms rather than alongside them, and why it is harder to reverse quickly once it turns.
Flanders has been under its own code orange alert, one level above Brussels' code yellow, since the middle of July. The Royal Meteorological Institute's drought index has Brussels moving in the same direction. Forest fire risk in the region is rated code orange, the second highest level. None of these are new instruments. What is notable is that they are all now pointing the same way at once, which is a different situation from any single indicator moving on its own.