Severe droughts have been a part of world history since the beginning of time. What's different today, primarily due to climate change, is they are becoming longer with less chance of the drought lifting.
When this happens, it is referred to as aridification, the gradual process of an area getting drier and warmer. While arid regions may still experience rain events, these will become fewer and fewer over time.
Scientists are now paying closer attention to droughts, aridification, and what is causing them, primarily because they are happening so frequently and impacting more people. NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies is one organization that has been looking into historical precipitation data based on tree rings. If a tree grows over several years, it will have more – and more prominent – annual rings. This typically indicates a period of considerable precipitation.
If there are fewer rings – sometimes none – or the rings are less prominent, it indicates periods of drought.
But droughts do more than disrupt the life cycle of trees and vegetation. They also affect our lifestyles, businesses, and agriculture, and they can cause considerable suffering - even death.
For instance, according to Statista, which collects statistics on many issues and topics, the following are the five worst droughts in recorded history and the deaths that resulted:
China: In 1928, an estimated 3 million people died due to a prolonged drought.
Bangladesh: Nearly 2 million people died due to drought conditions in this country in 1943.
India: Drought in India resulted in 1.5 million deaths in 1942 and another 1.5 million deaths in 1965.
Soviet Union: An estimated 1.2 million people were reported to have died due to drought in 1921.
China: In 1920, eight years before its most lethal drought, China suffered a severe drought that killed 500,000 people.
Droughts not only cause deaths, suffering, and hardship, but they can change entire societies. As an example, a series of mega-droughts about 100,000 years ago in Africa caused one of the first migrations in human history. Africans moved away from the African continent because the lack of precipitation made it increasingly inhospitable. With no water, life became impossible.
Here are three more examples of how droughts changed entire societies:
1. A 2013 report in the National Geographic Magazine concluded it was not civil strife that led to the fall of the pharaohs in Egypt about 4,500 years ago. It was chronic drought.
2. The Mayan empire in Mexico was experiencing rapid growth about 1,200 years ago. But then drought set in. According to NASA, with drought and dwindling water supplies, crops failed and wars with neighboring nations over water began. This eventually led to the Mayan civilization's demise.
3. In the U.S., the drought of the mid-1930s drove 2 million people off their land in the Midwest. This period was referred to as the Dust Bowl. However, something else happened during the Dust Bowl that is rarely reported, also causing people to leave this area of the country.
According to the American Red Cross, the arid conditions resulted in the spread of acute infections and diseases. They reported a 100 percent increase in pneumonia cases and acute respiratory infections. Due to all the airborne dust, there was also a steep jump in the number of people diagnosed with eye ulcers and serious eye infections.
The question we all need to ask ourselves now is whether we are living in another era that will result in extensive hardship, potential deaths, and the migration of people out of very dry areas of the country into those with more precipitation. After all, California is now reporting the worst drought in 1,200 years.
The only option we have to combat the effects of drought is to use water more efficiently and find ways to not use water at all. Waterless urinals are one example of a technology that has eliminated water use entirely. We need more technologies introduced that do the same.
Klaus Reichardt is CEO and founder of Waterless Co, Inc, pioneers in advancing water efficiency. Reichardt founded the company in 1991 with the goal of establishing a new market segment in the plumbing fixture industry with water efficiency in mind. Reichardt is a frequent writer and presenter, discussing water conservation issues. He can be reached at klaus@waterless.com
