Related Post
A new report issued by the United Nations stated that, based on data issued by 101 countries that are party to the United Nations Convention against… Desertification1.84 billion people around the world are vulnerable to drought, a portion of whom are exposed to severe or very severe drought. This means that approximately one in four people on the planet is vulnerable to drought.
According to the report issued during the first week of December, entitled “Drought Snapshots 2023,” the burden of global drought falls mainly on the poorest people, as 85% of those affected by drought live in middle- and low-income countries.
Drought and climate change
Drought is defined as a period of time during which an area experiences less than normal rainfall, which leads to a decrease in soil moisture and groundwater and a decrease in the flow of waterways, leading to a general water shortage and crop damage.
It is associated with dehydration By climate change Directly, high temperatures enhance evaporation, reducing surface water and drying out soil and plants.
In addition, warmer winter temperatures cause less rain to fall on lakes, which are major resources for rivers, reducing the amount of water flowing to areas facing drought.
In addition, some research has found that rising temperatures increase rainfall fluctuations, which means that there will be drier periods, and even when rainy periods come, the falling water will run on dry land and not be absorbed easily, which increases the possibility of floods.
In a study conducted in 2020 and published in the journal “Science”, researchers indicated that human-caused climate change represents 46% of the causes of the occurrence of Mega drought Which has struck areas such as the western United States and northern Mexico over the past two decades.
The world is changing
According to the United Nations report, global drought leads to forced migration, as 98% of the 32.6 million new disaster-related displacements in 2022 were the result of weather-related risks such as storms, floods and drought.
The term expresses Climate migration About those who have left their homes as a result of climate change. In general, heat waves and droughts resulting from climate change have reduced global economic growth by up to 29.3 trillion US dollars between 1992 and 2013, and these problems appear especially in fragile regions such as sub-Saharan Africa.
Globally, the United Nations International Organization for Migration expects that there will be one billion migrants as a result of climate conditions by half the century. This estimate is considered optimistic, as other models believe that the number will reach between 1.2 and 1.4 billion migrants.
Drought is escalating
The “Drought Snapshots 2023” report shows that the effects of drought are on the rise, and the greatest evidence of this is what happened in 2022, when… Europe experienced its harshest summer It has the second warmest year on record, and thus the largest area affected by drought overall compared to the annual average in more than two decades.
The report predicts that by the end of the century, the duration of moderate, severe and exceptional droughts will double in many regions of China, and drought severity will increase by more than 80%.
What is worse, according to the report, is that drought affects the terrestrial environment in a variety of ways. For example, drought severely affects homogeneous ecosystems, leading to the migration or even extinction of an entire organism.
Drought can also put primary energy sources at risk. For example, when water levels drop, the cooling capabilities of power plants decrease, and hydropower facilities can also be affected by water shortages.
For example, hydropower generation has decreased by 44% overall in Spain due to the recent drought. For Norway, which relies on hydropower for about 90% of its electricity generation, the unusually low levels of its water reservoirs have forced it to limit energy exports.
In addition, the economy based on agriculture is exposed to major problems. In Argentina, for example, soybean production by the end of the current year is expected to be 44% lower than the average of the previous five years, and the soybean crop is expected to be the lowest since 1988.
This extends to the direct economic impact, as planning for short, severe droughts requires about four times the cost of planning for long, mild droughts.
Work on the future
According to the United Nations report, with temperatures rising by 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels during this century, the number of world people exposed to severe to exceptional drought is expected to rise from 3% to 8%.
The report explains that extreme heat and drought will hit 90% of the world’s population at some point, and this in turn will weaken people’s ability to take appropriate measures to confront worsening climate change.
For these reasons, working to develop sustainable development models globally has become a necessity and not just a choice, as sustainable development can reduce the population’s exposure to drought by 70% compared to development dependent on fossil fuels, according to the report.
