Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

There will not be any agricultural production, no water to drink and certainly no life because even the wild animals will die, as accelerating drought conditions become a “silent killer”, explains the executive secretary of UNCCD.

This year the GAR special report released by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) on Droughts has estimated the “impact of severe droughts on India’s GDP to be about 2-5% per annum”.

This calculation has been made despite an ever- decreasing contribution of agriculture in country’s economic fabric, considering the agriculture to be directly impacted by drought conditions and its inability to produce sufficient food.

“The Deccan region sees the highest frequency (of more than 6%) of severe droughts in all of India,” report says while speaking of cascading effect that may continue for years.

Deccan plateau, a 43% inalienable mystery-containing landmass off India that is so made from igneous rocks from the past and is known for its severe droughts each year, has been studied by UNDRR.

Abundant case studies drying the lives out across India:

To prove its point, the report while considering recent few droughts in Tamil Nadu explained how a 20% reduction in primary sector caused the other sectors to shrink in the state: 5% in Industry and 3% in service sector.

“Drought is on the verge of becoming the next pandemic and there is no vaccine to cure it. Drought has directly affected 1.5 billion people so far this century and this number will grow dramatically unless the world gets better at managing this risk.”

And hence the report finds all conditions to be favorable enough for severe drought in every three years in the dry regions of deccan plateau.

A 2019 case study revealed “villages in Maharashtra and Karnataka districts were deserted as families left due to the acute water crisis; in one village in the Beed district of Maharashtra, which was abandoned with only 10-15 families remaining out of a population of more than 2,000.”

Also, there is an increasing frequency for droughts in India’s garb, spilling around the socio-economic vulnerabilities proving to be far more damaging to the efforts done for sustainable development. 5% loss (as reported) in GDP due to these increasing drought incidents is a hefty amount to endure parting by a developing country like India.

What actually causes a drought?

A period of uncertain, drier-than-normal conditions resulting in water-related problems, leads to a drought.

With little or no rain falling, the soils can dry out and plants can find hard to survive. When this trend occurs from weeks to years, water scarcity prevails: streamflows decline, water levels in lakes and reservoirs fall, the depth to water in wells increases.

If the dry weather persists and water-supply problems develop, the dry period can become an incumbent drought.

The report clarifies: “Drought risk is complex and has broad systemic impacts on societies, economies and the environment – all of which underpin future sustainable development”.

History and probable future of dry spells:

There have been several major droughts in India in the last 150 years and the report has not failed to mention those in perpetuity: 1876-1878, 1899-1900, 1918-1919, 1965-1967, 2000-2003 and 2015-2018.
The world countries have too faced the vagaries of such grave droughts bearing an annual loss (as per the report) of around $6.4 billion in the US alone and Euro 9 billion in Europe. Australia has witnessed its agricultural productivity falling by 18% during 2002-2010 due to drought-like conditions.

According to data from the Aqueduct project at the World Resources Institute, Moldova and Ukraine, possess the highest risk of drought globally.

More affected countries, carrying a medium to high risk of droughts, can be found in the Middle East, North Africa, Asia – including India and China – and Europe.

According to UN, the water scarcity and drought are prepared to wreak damage even greater the Covid-19 pandemic as risks surround the increasing temperatures.

“Most of the world will be living with water stress in the next few years. Drought manifests over months, years, sometimes decades, and the results are felt just as long,” the report says.

In next 80 years, 129 countries are to experience an increase in drought because of climate change, another 23 will see water shortages because of population growth, and 38 to experience droughts in action.

It is well known that Climate change is increasing global temperatures and disrupting rainfall patterns, increasing the frequency paired with changing circulations like El Nino or Madden-Julian Oscillations, increasing the severity and duration of droughts in many regions across the globe.

We cannot stop time and as we move towards a 2˚C warmer world, the urgent action is requested to better understand and manage drought risk, the worst of natural disasters to reduce the devastating toll on human lives and livelihoods, and even already fettered ecosystems.

By Alaina Ali Beg

I am a lover of all arts and therefore can dream myself in all places where the World takes me. I am an avid animal lover and firmly believes that Nature is the true sorcerer.

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