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Drought effects on the environment
Drought effects on the environment
A Relationship Between Climate Change And Droughts
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Introduction
Somalia has been in drought for many years. A drought is basically a lengthy period of time with little or no rainfall this leads to a shortage of water in the country. This can have a huge impact on the people and the economy. They are many possible changes that can lead to droughts for example, climate change, population growth, uneven distribution of water resources, urbanisation and many more. I am going to mainly focus on how the drought in Somalia affects the people.
Review of articles
Review of article 1
Somalia: drought affecting thousands in Somaliland
The drought that is currently affecting Somalia is no ordinary drought. It is the worst in 36 years. Other places in Somalia haven’t received rain for nine months. The grass has been destroyed cattle and goats are dying in huge numbers. Since animals are not buried their carcasses lie all over even on roads. Riverbeds are slowly drying out. Many people depend on livestock and vegetation for survival. People are now malnourished since they decide to take food that they were going to eat and feed the cattle and goats with it. Some who can’t even afford their own food eventually take grass from their roofs to feed the cows this then leaves the people living in adequate shelter.
Review of article 2
“Horn of Africa sees 'worst drought in 60 years”.
Drought is one of the natural disaster that develop slowly one might not even notice. Droughts tend to last a long time. Compared to other natural disasters droughts, unlike earthquakes or cyclones where they are an exact time or date. This makes it difficult to know the exact time the drought started or ended. Droughts kill more people while floods affect more people. 22 million people die during the year 1960-20...
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...gh evaporation rates which leads to land drying up. Since the land heats up quicker and takes a long time to cool down this then cause problems for farmers who may be planting crops that are temperature specific.
Conclusion
In the articles above it is clearly stated that a drought has a huge impact on people is well explained giving us a true and relent insight on how the change in climate can lead to drastic problems which cannot be solved easily. Lack of precipitation has a great impact on people which then has knock effect making the whole population and country suffer. They is not much one can do to stop this unpredictable long lasting natural disaster. All of this is a result of climate change which may be caused by global warming leading the depletion of ozone layer which can play a role in seasonal changes. Indeed drought affected people in Somalia hugely.
Water shortage in arid and semi-arid regions and declining its availability to a crisis ...
The drought along with the dust storms as stated already made it impossible to plant crops, it also made it very difficult to provide food for the farmers and their families. If you could not plant anything, you did not have food for animals and you did not have food for families or children that needed it desperately. There was a sudden urgency of concern once farmers could not feed their family and members of those families started to starve.
Some of the direct effects of the droughts were that many of the farmers’ crops were damaged by deficient rainfall, high temperatures, and high winds, as well as insect infestations and dust storms that accompanied these conditions. What essentially happened was that the soil lacked the stronger root system of grass as an anchor, so the winds easily picked up the loose topsoil and swirled it into dense dust clouds, called “black blizzards.” The constant dry weather caused crops to fail, leaving the plowed fields exposed to wind erosion. The effects of the drought happened so rapidly and progressively over time that there was very little preparation and planning the farmers could do before having to abandon their homes.
Somalia is one of the world’s poorest and least developed countries (Campbell). Because of the Civil War, which broke out in 1991, much of Somalia’s economy has been devastated. The war left many homeless and drove them to raise livestock as a means of survival. The economy used to be based on exports of cattle, goats, and bananas but as of early 1992 much of the economic trade had come to a halt. Now the economy is primarily based on the raising of livestock, which accounts for 40% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Alhaus). Due to overgrazing, soil erosion, and the clearing away of many trees, Somalia has very few natural resources, which have not been exploited.
There have been many famines that have greatly impacted Ethiopia. One of the famine that is very famous in Ethiopian history and World history is known as the Great Famine. Due to the lack of the support of the government and other organizations, about one million people died of starvation. The conditions of Ethiopia in the beginning of 1984 were not well. “The Ethiopian government predicted that the agricultural yield of the nation was going to be considerably lower in at the beginning of 1984 because there had been less rainfall than expected. However, preventive measures were not taken by either the government or the rest of the world to prevent the mass starva...
Couttenier, Mathieu, and Raphael Soubeyran. "Drought and Civil War in Sub-Saharan Africa." Paris School of Economics, July 2011. Accessed June 9, 2014.
Climate change impacts the basic resources needed by nations to continue and for humans to survive and continue on with their lives. For this reason, civil unrest occurs and wars happen. Militant groups and radicals such as ISIS control and secure their access to what is left of these resources like water so as for people to join their cause. There are also uprisings all over the world where protesters demand food due to starvation from lack of food which resulted from drought and food price increases which affects the global market significantly. Moreover, poverty is also a result of
High temperature causes the glaciers to melt which raises the sea level on earth which will cause having more frequent flooding and very low-lying land could get submerged completely, It will also affect the food as too much water flowing into the agricultural lands will spoil the
The weather in this novel controls their crops and the river flow; which controls their food and water supply. They depend on adequate rainfall to help their crops to grow and for the river to be full. They also depend on the sun to warm things up and make the crops grow. However, if there is too much rain or too much sun it can cause many problems, such as a drought or a flood. These things are significant in this novel, because t...
... people of Somalia. One of these is the history and how an escalating fight for power can affect the entire population. Next, the economy is suffering by the lack of jobs and exports from the country making many people live in poverty and more than half the population needing immediate food aid. The healthcare in Somalia is lacking the resources to be successful in treating people of illnesses impacting the entire countries population. Terrorist groups make living life in Somalia hard for there is constant fighting between groups fighting for power as well as moving by civilians to get away from the conflict. 500,000 people should not be dead because of the civil war in Somalia. Maybe one day this war will be over, but until then, all we can do is hold out our hope that they will rise past this horrible time in their history and rebuild to become great once again.
... areas will get more precipitation and storms while others will get nothing and have serious droughts. The warming of a few degrees will cause glaciers to melt and sea ice to melt leading to a lot of damage. This damage would lead the levels of the oceans to rise and would cause damage to coastal cities and islands. This would cause serious problems for the different species living in the oceans and could some disease. Especially diseases caused by mosquitoes which love warm and humid climates. There are many ideas and solutions to stop global warming. It is very difficult to reverse this process once it is started. If we want to live like we are now and have been we have to stop this process. Emissions of fossil fuels by humans is a big factor of global warming. The reason being is because of the amount of carbon dioxide released from the fossil fuels. Controlling these emissions is one huge step of many steps required to slow down and stop global warming. If global warming is not controlled, all the problems that have been mentioned, along with other problems will disrupt the living patterns in which we live.
(2009). The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'. Drought - a fact sheet. Retrieved from: http://www.ifad.org/lrkm/factsheet/cc.pdf The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, (2007).
Many scientific studies also show increases in the intensity, duration, and extent of droughts, higher atmospheric temperatures, warmer sea surface temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, and diminishing glaciers and snowpack. The bottom line is that causes of climate change, such as greenhouse gas emissions, will have to be minimized if people want to do as much as possible to solve the water crisis. Works Cited Water demand management: the case of Zaragoza, Spain Web 25 Nov. 2014. http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/swm_cities_zaragoza_2010/pdf/final_report_swm_cities.pdf.
Of all the effects of global warming, the extreme weather that is taking place all over the world is the most obvious one. Global warming will bring more heat waves, drought, fiercer wildfires and stronger hurricanes. “This intensification of weather and climate extremes will be the most visible impact of global warming in our everyday lives” (75 yrs NWF). Due to rising temperatures, places everywhere will be affected as we get more extremely hot summer days and lesser winters. In addition, as these rising temperatures shifts the cycle of rain and increases evaporation, there will be longer and drier droughts which in turn can lower the water supply for life everywhere. Wildfires can turn out to be even more catastrophic due to warmer temperatures and drier areas combined with accumulated levels of fuel loads in the forest which has built up as a result of decades of fire suppression activities. Moreover, stronger hurricanes are also an effect of global warming as sea levels are rising and heavier rains are falling near the coasts. Overall, global warming is bringing climates that are changing real fast.
Climate change is currently affecting agriculture because it is causing prolonged droughts, violent flooding, sea level to rise, and also health related issues. Droughts and flooding utterly affect agriculture because it damages cultivation since the amount of water applied to crops and farming is fundamental to the...