The present shift in climate has significantly increased the severity of weather extremes such as droughts and floods. Drought is defined in two ways: according to the WMO, it is based on meteorological events such as a prolonged period of abnormally dry weather, while the disaster preparedness department of the Kenya National Disaster Management Unit perceives drought as a prolonged shortage of water in a particular area in Kenya.
1. Introduction
The consequences of droughts are often more destructive when they occur in middle-latitude regions with agriculture as the main economic activity. Non-widely considered as a natural disaster, drought commonly brings about various environmental impacts, making it a key topic of concern for climate change experts.
Droughts are normal in all climatic zones, and their
frequency and intensity differ from one region to another. Globally, about 70%
of countries are affected by drought, which in turn affects more than 1.5
billion people. This means that drought potentially has the largest widespread
impact on society.
According to the World Meteorological Organization
(WMO), drought is a natural phenomenon in all climatic zones and is usually
associated with socio-economic and environmental impacts. Willis Akhwale also
compared life skills with drought by stating that life skills are like the deep
roots of a tree that anchor individuals firmly in the soil. A decline in
resilience in life skills may be similar to having a shallow root base that
is easily uprooted in times of storm or drought.
2. Understanding Droughts and Climate Change
This article addresses two primary issues in
dealing with the challenge of future droughts in the context of climate change:
- understanding the events
- developing strategies to lessen their negative impacts.
The understanding of events considers the nature of
drought risks and vulnerabilities; this understanding is important because
underpinning needs for strategies to build resilience are data on the impacts
of droughts on the physical environment and ecosystems, the extent to which
people are sensitive and exposed to drought impacts, and the efforts of
communities and institutions to manage and cope with droughts.
Understanding and anticipation build the basis for
creating coherent, strategic, and specific solutions to reduce vulnerabilities,
increase the adaptive capacity of human and natural systems to drought, and build resilience.
Drought has always been a fact of life in the United
States. When one occurs, the consequences and impacts on the physical
environment, ecosystems, people, and communities are substantial and can be
disabling. The situation internationally is considerably worse. The developing
countries endure withering droughts that produce catastrophic food shortages
and widespread suffering. What is different in our current situation from
challenges in the past is the reality of sustained changes in the Earth's climate.
These changes are caused by human activities,
primarily the release of greenhouse gases. Both the reality and the totality of
these changes have been dismissed in national conversations in recent years,
driven in part by propaganda on the part of special interests. Global warming
has now been recognized as an existential threat, and the challenges ahead have
never been more profound.
3. Strategies for Building Resilience
a/. Utilizing the potential of new technologies and better monitoring of the onset of droughts :
The intelligence and information to engage
in adaptive actions at the early stages of drought can expedite the development
of timely, effective, and wise drought response, in turn influencing the
outcome of drought mitigation efforts. Advancements in the area of technologies
can help engage in drought resilience and drought mitigation in a proactive and
positive manner.
Future work on drought resilience should not only use
new technologies to become more effective in monitoring droughts but should
also develop capabilities to early respond to droughts, as judicious actions of
timely relevancy can do much to mitigate the negative impacts of droughts.
b/. Combined policies and mixed-instrument approaches:
The basic tenet is that no single policy or approach can effectively mitigate the negative impacts of droughts. It is important to maintain congruence by optimizing a suite of approaches to reduce the space for increasing the negative impacts of droughts. It is also necessary to reduce conflicts, increase synergies, and work to create a variety of protective measures that will interact and work on the future direction of droughts.
4. Water Conservation and Management
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Public supply accounts for the smallest volume of
water-cooled, which includes residential water supply, industrial water supply,
and commercial water supply. The amount of water consumed each day by the
public sector, which includes homes, businesses, schools, and government
buildings, in the United States is roughly 44 billion gallons per day.
This includes water supplied by public water
suppliers, self-supplied groundwater, and self-supplied surface water used in
the public sector for drinking, food service, and sanitation activities. The
residential portion of water use is significantly impacted by population growth
and residential water use could show projected increases in the western region
of the United States by 2030. The decrease in water supplies is a major issue in
Central and Southern areas, such as the Colorado River and the Rio Grande region,
which are influenced significantly by population growth and climate change.
According to the 2015 U.S. Geological Survey water use
report, the United States used a total of 322 billion gallons of freshwater per
day, and the largest use of that water came from thermoelectric power plants,
irrigation, and public supply. The energy sector withdraws more water than any
other sector. The large amount of water used by the thermoelectric power plants
is mostly for cooling.
Currently,
once-through cooling is used for roughly 45% of all thermoelectric power
plants, but this method is being phased out due to the detrimental impact it
has on local aquatic life populations. For example, over 106 plants that take
advantage of once-through cooling, 13% of the United States current thermoelectric
power capacity, withdraw from freshwater sources which impacts local aquatic
populations. Withdrawals as a result of cooling have been a major concern in
regions such as the Midwest, where the Mississippi River Basin and Great Lakes
have been impacted significantly by the high amounts of water withdrawn.
4.1. Diversification of Water Sources
Economic arguments generally favor centralized water supply, treatment, and delivery systems that share costs across a large customer base. Decentralized systems, including direct-use rainwater systems and individual desalination, are generally more expensive, particularly when distributed over small per-customer volumes. Climate change could lessen this economic impediment to diversity, primarily by changing temperatures.
Conservation and efficient use of water resources is an essential element in adapting to climate change and variability, particularly where traditional sources are diminishing in response to flow reductions due to rising temperatures and increased water demand.
Diverse alternative sources of water, such as
stormwater, rooftop collection, treated wastewater, brackish water, seawater,
water harvested from fog, or water from surface water or groundwater storage,
can create a more flexible urban water system that can be used to buffer
climate, regulatory, and other uncertainties. Diversifying water sources
increases the resilience of a water supply system by increasing the
availability of supplies under a broader set of conditions.
The growing interest in diversity reflects the fact
that many of the low-cost supply-side water options that urban areas
traditionally relied upon, especially in the American West, are no longer
available. As traditional water sources diminish in response, urban water
managers are focusing more attention on thermal and health-related constraints
that limit acceptable options for meeting urban water demands.
4.2. Improving Agricultural Practices
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Improving commodity efficiency consists of improving
water, land, or energy use for productive purposes and tends to reduce pressure
on specific resources. For example, increasing the production of a specific
crop per ton of water consumed achieves a larger production per unit of water
applied (crop per drop) and can result in reduced pressure on that particular
water resource.
Those practices vary widely between countries and
regions, depending on the types of crops grown and climate conditions. Options
to improve those performances range from technical improvements, such as
improving crop variety or fertilization strategies, to broader policy
interventions like incentives or regulation. Several implementation challenges
need consideration for improving commodity efficiency, especially regarding
economic, social, and equity impacts.
For example, improving water productivity atthe plot
level should consider direct and indirect economic, social, and environmental
impacts to guarantee a more inclusive strategy.
Agriculture is both a victim of drought and a water
user. From 1980 to 2014, agriculture accounted for 20% of economic losses due
to natural disasters worldwide, with 42% of those losses due to droughts. At
the same time, agriculture is deeply dependent on water resources, with 70% of
all freshwater withdrawals used for agriculture.
Yet agriculture is often considered a
"low-hanging fruit," as economically efficient solutions exist that
also improve crop productivity and resilience to both increasing pressures on
the resource and increased uncertainties under climate change. It is relatively
easy to implement more economic behavior (e.g., through pricing mechanisms),
improve productivity, and reduce damage to agriculture while safeguarding the
environment.
4.3. Enhancing Early Warning Systems
Incorporating an early warning system for fire
management at the municipality level within existing effective local responses
creates a sustainable DBF early action. A major challenge for early warning
systems in most parts of the world is the operational capacity regarding
knowledge, staff, and investments.
As is clear
from the implementation gaps, detailed scientific information is of limited
value to most communities experiencing unexpected fire impacts. Engaging local
active fire experts (fire brigades) as early as possible has major potential
for improving this situation. The knowledge priority should be identifying the
available local resources and designing methods for integrating these data
sources to produce solutions that are most effective in the local context.
Accurate risk forecasts are essential, but they are not of primary importance
in practice, and may even disrupt action.
A transparent and timely information flow to all
involved ddecision-makers andstakeholders is vital to ensure the intended use
of drought and fire risk forecasts. This need is validated across case studies
in Spain, Brazil, and the U.S., where research uncovered challenges to
integrating risk forecasts within the context in which potential actions become
available and feasible.
Results show that forecasts alone will likely not
assure the successful use of an early warning system because decision-makers
generally apply their own context and discount the probabilistic information
provided by the forecast.
Therefore, the early warning system should be designed
in connection with the needs and responsibilities of drought and fire
management and with decision-makers' perceptions of risk and current
vulnerability conditions. Identifying effective communication pathways and
formats is necessary so that risk forecasts are correctly interpreted,
integrated with available information, and culminate in concrete actions to
reduce fire hazard or severity.
5. Implementing Solutions
Innovative, demand-driven, bottom-up measures that
support communities and individuals should be developed more broadly, aligning
the overall working principles advocated by the CARE-WWF Vulnerable Twenty
(V20) Group with local stakeholder needs and based on empowering the community
to lead the initiative.
In Madagascar, for example, weather index insurance
provided a safety net to the most vulnerable households in thesouthwestt of
the country, facing annual food shortages following recurrent drought events.
Specific and direct action can be taken at the
community level, enabling risk reduction through collective action and mutual
assistance. Indeed, local communities possess a wealth of valuable knowledge on
management strategies that help cope with and recover from drought stress.
National
authorities need to work closely with community representatives, providing the
necessary support in setting up local private or community drought insurance,
micro-credit schemes, social safety nets, water conservation schemes, early
warning systems, and knowledge transfer and improving the general information
base for intervention.
Second, in view of the high frequency of drought
events, the prolonged duration of the associated suffering,g and the negative
feedback of drought vulnerability and poverty on each other, there is a case to
be made for incorporating droughts into the list of high-profile hazards, such
as cyclones or floods, with established crisis management systems, coordination
and response measures.
Given the magnitude and complexity of the
interventions required to bridge the institutional and policy gap in enhancing drought
resilience, several considerations are essential. First, it is crucial to
integrate drought risks into national development plans, recognizing the
economic and social impact that drought disasters have in developing countries.
This is necessary for mainstreaming disaster risk
reduction into development policy, and for aligning disaster responsiveness
with longer-term development objectives.
5.1. Policy and Governance
The report underscores that evidence on the
relationship between climate change, drought, and social dimensions (associated
with gender, education, literacy, age, occupation, experience in farming, etc.)
is useful for devising climate information and extension services programs.
There was also a call for the mainstreaming of gender
issues into the policy process for gender-sensitive planning, information
delivery, participatory management, and gender equity. Periodic review and
updating of administrative policies and procedures necessitate the effective
implementation of risk management processes. Coordinated and holistic sectoral
policies assume significance.
National, state, and district-level authorities must promote policies that allow for science and evidence-based, coordinated, and integrated
drought risk management processes. Further, enhancing public-private
partnerships that allow the leveraging of the private sector to enhance
technology transfers and innovation spending was suggested to enhance
resilience.
Societal efforts to achieve resilient farming systems
are constrained and influenced by various policy, governance, and societal
issues. Enhanced support from governments through policy and governance
mechanisms or interventions can improve resilience.
Many policies and institutions already have a strong
influence on the resilience of rural communities to climate variability.
Improving these existing mechanisms or developing new ones can accelerate
resilience-building. At the same time, progress in meeting long-standing
development challenges, such as poverty eradication and food security, can both
directly increase resilience and provide valuable learning for other complex
systems.
.png "Policy and Governance")
5.2. Community Engagement and Education
Activities geared at making drought and climate
research personally relevant and straightforward to communities, both often
rooted in or inspired by such work, are the most effective.
Community meetings, participatory planning exercises,
and gatherings are usefully weighed against widely accessible and customizable
content made available by partners. Ideally, this tool would provide users with
key resources, such as a community education activity guide, a community hazard
planning template, and drought-relevant didactic content customizable to
partners.
Through this, community leaders, educators, and
scientists can all be on the same page and the benefits of research are carefully
communicated and directly applicable to issues that communities prioritize
surrounding drought and other hazards.
Those responsible for making large-scale and long-term
decisions on water planning and management often struggle to earn the
confidence of the general public and make the process as transparent as
possible. In situations where current and future drought conditions, and the
associated long-term impacts on water availability, are not well understood or
fully appreciated by the general public, they may, quite naturally, resist
policy actions that have significant societal costs. While education in and of
itself cannot directly increase the public's knowledgeofn drought and climate
science concerns, partner communities and organizations can help support the
broader application of research and data to key lapses within communication and
understanding.
5.3. Infrastructure Development
The environment for development in Africa is changing
rapidly. Climate change will have huge and negative impacts on a large variety
of sectors, including agriculture, water, energy, infrastructure, and human
security. Infrastructure is a crucial enabler for inclusive growth and poverty
reduction in most countries.
The continent will heavily depend on seasonal
rainwater for its socio-economic development. Therefore, efficient and
effective development and delivery of agricultural infrastructure that will
help produce food and other crops is a prime prerequisite for Africa's desired
development.
With the release of Africa's Agriculture Status, it is
evident that most great economies are employing agriculture as a lead factor in
promoting production and employment to achieve growth targets. It therefore
follows that if Africa is to achieve significant success in development,
attention to the continent's infrastructure, including agriculture, should
receive due attention.
The central theme in the climate change discourse is
how Africa shall cope with the adverse impacts of climate. Sub-Saharan Africa
bears the burden of dealing with the harsh reality due to its heavy reliance on
agriculture, which is the backbone of its economy.
With agriculture still being rainfed and total
dependence on weather and climate, vulnerability to climate change and
variability limits the potential of the continent to achieve the necessary
growth to address poverty levels, putting the continent’s development back in
terms of achieving desired international development paths.
6. Research and Innovation
Research issues are many, as the latest multi-project
national drought assessment report attests. Issues with special relevance to
drought management are, in particular, the regionalization of drought severity
indicators, the improvement of impact assessment methods, the effectiveness of
the decision support systems, the impacts of water infrastructures, the impacts
of dried soil layers, the water loss mechanisms, and the so-called second-order
effects.
As to the resolution of the latter as well as the
penetration of drought management plans into societal practice, research mustn't confine itself to studying technical or administrative
measures only. Surveillance and control of the development of "information
deficits," of the excessive loss of trust in drought managers or
authorities, or of the changes in personal or cultural elements are also the
domain of existential research topics.
The research represents the quintessentially long-term
approach to improving our understanding of droughts and their impacts, under
present conditions and with increasing climate change. It also forms the basis
through which innovation can be put in motion, so as to optimize existing
drought management plans and to achieve further improvements in the
penetration, application, and acceptance of such plans among stakeholders.
A systematic approach is to follow the process from
policy recommendations to strategy formulation to implementation and
evaluation, and backward through adaptive management. The basic concept is a
cycle of progress promoted through:
- (a) a periodic review and assessment to detect problems or opportunities and to generate changes in policies, procedures, or activities.
- (b) adaptive management, based on revised strategies or solutions.
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