The biggest single global threat from climate change has to be drought and its ensuing impact on the peoples of the area that it hits. Whereas more developed countries are better equipped to deal with drought, developing countries are being devastated by it and it is thought to be triggering crisis upon crisis, including high levels of immigration.
According to a study by US scientists, drought had a lot to do with the 2011 uprising in Syria, where the regime’s unsustainable agricultural policies caused the collapse of farming in north-eastern region, and triggered a mass exodus to cities. It is estimated that the uprising claimed around 200,000 lives, and the study implicates global warming from human activities as one of the factors that led to this.
According to a piece published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Colin Kelley from the University of California in Santa Barbara, “There is evidence that the 2007−2010 drought contributed to the conflict in Syria. It was the worst drought in the instrumental record, causing widespread crop failure and a mass migration of farming families to urban centers. Century-long observed trends in precipitation, temperature, and sea-level pressure, supported by climate model results, strongly suggest that anthropogenic forcing has increased the probability of severe and persistent droughts in this region, and made the occurrence of a 3-year drought as severe as that of 2007−2010 2 to 3 times more likely than by natural variability alone. We conclude that human influences on the climate system are implicated in the current Syrian conflict.â€
There are three kinds of drought:
- Meteorological Drought: When the rains fail;
- Hydrological Drought: When the lack of rainfall goes on long enough to empty rivers and lower water tables; and
- Agricultural Drought: The lack of water starts killing crops and livestock and eventually humans too.
It seems that a global solution to drought needs to be found, but the problem is that a drought has to be declared by a national government, so international agencies cannot do anything until this has to be done. Unfortunately it seems that local governments often take too long to declare a drought, and this leads to more devastation and loss of life.
While droughts cannot be prevented, and the call for a global system to monitor upcoming droughts and issue warnings was initially proposed at a ministerial summit in South Africa in 2007 by US government researchers, headed by Jay Lawrimore of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), nobody is stepping up with offers of funding to make this a reality.
Governments globally need to wake up and step up to the plate – drought is not a local problem, it is a global one and only a global solution can make a difference. Agencies too, need to stop discussing Policy and get on with the business of solving global water problems.
Rent water coolers or buy water coolers online from Living-Water. Get mains water coolers and water cooler accessories for your home and office.
