Chapter Eighteen DROUGHT : ITS PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL DIMENSIONS

Handbook of Drought and Water Scarcity : Principles of Drought and Water Scarcity, 2017

Water scarcity and droughts are socio-environmental hazards that affect the lives of millions of people every year. This chapter examines the multi-faceted dimensions of these phenomena and their implications to human societies. Various aspects will be considered, including the relation with climate change, economic and socio-political dimensions, under the main focus of development studies. The introductory section discusses water scarcity and drought in the light of the international development goals and global environmental change. The second part will provide some popular definitions of concepts and measures, i.e., water scarcity/stress indicators and management strategies, water poverty and drought. The third part will consider relevant social-environmental concepts that are discussed in literature such as vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation. The fourth part will present case studies especially from Europe, Africa and the Middle East, to illustrate the relevance of human (including socio-cultural-political) structures shaping adaptation to drought. In this line, water scarcity and drought will be studied: 1) as a normal condition in some areas of the world (e.g., in the Saharan and Sahelian belts of Africa), where populations have established resilient socio-ecological systems; 2) in terms of climate change and progressive deterioration of the environment to which communities have either been able to adapt to (e.g., in southern Europe), or have been forced to experience crises, poverty and migrations (e.g., in Sudan, Morocco, Kenya); and 3) in terms of conflicts and residential segregation that makes water inaccessible to certain groups (e.g., in the West Bank). Finally, this chapter will conclude with some international conventions and regulations, like the UNFCCC and the European guidelines for drought risk management, addressing social problems related to drought.

2000

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions, 2016

In the current human-modified world, or "Anthropocene", the state of water stores and fluxes has become dependent on human as well as natural processes. Water deficits (or droughts) are the result of a complex interaction between meteorological anomalies, land surface processes, and human inflows, outflows and storage changes. Our current inability to adequately analyse and manage drought in many places points to gaps in our understanding and to inadequate data and tools. The Anthropocene requires a new framework for drought definitions and research. Drought definitions need to be revisited to explicitly include human processes driving and modifying soil moisture drought and hydrological drought development. We give recommendations for robust drought definitions to clarify timescales of drought and prevent confusion with related terms such as water scarcity and overexploitation. Additionally, our understanding and analysis of drought need to move from single driver to mult...

2016

In the current human-modified world, or Anthropocene, the state of water stores and fluxes has become dependent on human as well as natural processes. Water deficits (or droughts) are the result of a complex interaction between meteorological anomalies, land surface processes, and human inflows, outflows, and storage changes. Our current inability to adequately analyse and manage drought in many places points to gaps in our understanding and to inadequate data and tools. The Anthropocene requires a new framework for drought definitions and research. Drought definitions need to be revisited to explicitly include human processes driving and modifying soil moisture drought and hydrological drought development. We give recommendations for robust drought definitions to clarify timescales of drought and prevent confusion with related terms such as water scarcity and overexploitation. Additionally, our understanding and analysis of drought need to move from single driver to multiple driver...

1993

The Missouri Review, 1992

Books in Soils, Plants, and the Environment, 2005

Atmosphere, 2022

Droughts have been identified as an environmental hazard by environmentalists, ecologists, hydrologists, meteorologists, geologists, and agricultural experts. Droughts are characterised by a decrease in precipitation over a lengthy period, such as a season or a year, and can occur in virtually all climatic zones, including both high and low rainfall locations. This study reviewed drought-related impacts on the environment and other components particularly, in South Africa. Several attempts have been made using innovative technology such as earth observation and climate information as recorded in studies. Findings show that the country is naturally water deficient, which adds to the climate fluctuation with the average annual rainfall in South Africa being far below the global average of 860 mm per year. Drought in South Africa’s Western Cape Province, for example, has resulted in employment losses in the province’s agriculture sector. According to the third quarterly labor force sur...