Drought
A period of drier-than-normal conditions with far-reaching impacts.
Last updated
Cavaliere grande · CC BY-SA 4.0
Conditions that are drier than normal, which can persist for days, months, or years, define a drought.[1] Ecosystems, farming, and regional economies frequently suffer substantial harm from drought.[2]
Quick Facts
- Definition
- Drier than normal conditions
- Categories
- Meteorological
- hydrological
- agricultural/ecological
- socioeconomic
- Key indices
- Palmer drought index
- SPI
- SPEI
- Keetch-Byram
- deciles index
- Major effects
- Environmental
- economic
- social
Facts from the source article.
Key facts and history
Droughts are grouped into three primary types based on where the water shortage occurs in the water cycle: meteorological, hydrological, and agricultural or ecological.[1] A lack of precipitation is the cause of a meteorological drought, whereas a hydrological drought is connected to diminished runoff, streamflow, and water stored in reservoirs.[1][3] Plant stress from evaporation and insufficient soil moisture is the result of an agricultural or ecological drought.[3] Regions that inherently receive low amounts of rainfall are the primary locations where droughts happen.[4]
In California and the Southwestern United States, La Niña events are typically linked to hotter and drier conditions that worsen drought.[5] A rise in temperature and atmospheric evaporative demand has led to a global increase in the frequency of droughts.[6] The drought in the Horn of Africa from 2020 to 2022 was more severe and lasted longer than the major drought of 2010–2011.[7] The Amazon basin experienced its most severe drought in a century during 2005.[8]
What the research sources say
A Carbon Brief analysis found that drought and famine killed 2,500 people in Uganda and affected eight million in Ethiopia in 2022.[9] At least 36.1 million people were affected by severe drought in the Horn of Africa in October 2022.[10] Over 8.9 million livestock died across the region due to the drought.[10] About 4.9 million children were acutely malnourished in drought-affected areas of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia.[10]
The drought drove alarming levels of malnutrition and increased the risk of disease, with cholera and measles cases rising.[10] The frequency and severity of droughts in recent years have made it harder for families to recover between shocks.[10]
References
- Wikipedia, "Drought" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. R (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Drought" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Living With Drought; Australian Drought and Climate Change . Retrieved June 7th 2007.; Brando, "Droughts, Wildfires, and Forest Carbon Cycling: A Pantropical Synthesis", Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 30 May 2019, p. 555–581; Merzdorf, "A Drier Future Sets the Stage for More Wildfires", Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet, July 9, 2019; Brando, "Droughts, Wildfires, and Forest Carbon Cycling: A Pantropical Synthesis", Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 30 May 2019, p. 555–581; Hartmann, "Climate Change Risks to en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Drought" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Van Loon, "Hydrological drought explained", WIREs Water, 14 April 2015, p. 359–392; Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. R; "Definition of Drought", National Centers for Environmental Information; "Types of Drought", drought.unl.edu (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Drought" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Greenhouse Effect, Sea Level and Drought", Springer Science & Business Media, 1990, p. 22; "The Oryx Resource Guide to El Niño and La Niña", Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, p. 48–49 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Drought" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Seth Borenstein, "Weather's unwanted guest: Nasty La Niña keeps popping up", 9news.com.au.com, May 28, 2022 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Drought" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Gebrechorkos, "Global high-resolution drought indices for 1981–2022", Earth System Science Data, 2023, p. 5449–5466 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Drought" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Dunne, "Analysis: Africa's unreported extreme weather in 2022 and climate change", Carbon Brief, 2022-10-26; "Horn of Africa Drought: Regional Humanitarian Overview & Call to Action", ReliefWeb, 2022-09-21 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Drought" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Amazon Drought Worst in 100 Years", ens-newswire.com; "Drought Threatens Amazon Basin", www.commondreams.org; "Australia faces worse, more frequent droughts: study", U.S. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Dunne, "Analysis: Africa's unreported extreme weather in 2022 and climate change", Carbon Brief, 2022-10-26. facts only, no text reused. carbonbrief.org
- "Horn of Africa Drought: Regional Humanitarian Overview & Call to Action", ReliefWeb, 2022-09-21. facts only, no text reused. reliefweb.int
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Drought (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
More in Meteorology
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Drought (CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Word definitions: the Codexery glossary, each quoted from its Wikipedia article.
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