Drought
- A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply.
- In the most general sense, drought originates from a deficiency of precipitation over an extended period of time, resulting in a water shortage for some activity, group or environmental sector.
- Generally, drought occurs when a region receives consistently below average rainfall. Lack of rainfall leads to inadequate water required by plants, animals and human beings.
- A drought leads to other disasters, namely food insecurity, famine, malnutrition, epidemics and displacement of populations from one area to another.
Causes of drought
1. Amount of water vapour in the atmosphere
Generally, rainfall is related to the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere, combined with the upward forcing of the air mass containing that water vapour. If either of these are reduced, the result is a drought.
2. Shifting of air masses
When winds shift air masses and warm, dry, continental air moves over an area as opposed to cooler, moist oceanic air masses, the area suffered a drought.
3. Mountains
Higher mountain ranges near ocean are also responsible for drought on the leeward side of the mountains because, the windward side of mountain gets heavy rainfall while leeward side gets very less rainfall.
4. Human activities
The following human activities also lead to drought,
- Over farming
- Deforestation
- excessive irrigation
- Erosion
- Building constructions
5. Global Warming
Overall, global warming will result in increased world rainfall along with drought in some areas, flooding and erosion will increase in others.
