Europe is running out of fresh water and “living beyond its means” by overexploiting water supplies, the head of the European Environment Agency warned on Tuesday.

A dried-up Spanish reservoir near Barcelona. When the reservoir was created, only the bell tower of the old church was visible above the water

Europeans are extracting too much from rivers, lakes and underground water sources, which can take millennia to be replenished, according to an EEA report published at the World Water Forum in Istanbul. This has so far disguised the continent’s water shortage, but it is only a stop-gap as supplies will run out.