Droughts are natural environmental forces that human beings have to deal with, regardless of whether they like to do so or not. As the temperature begins to soar in many parts of the world, people in many places are going to experience droughts more often, and in a more severe form. Such a situation can have an influential impact on many people’s lives, in various regions globally.
Drought pertains to an extensive amount of season (i.e., an entire season) without having any rainfall that eventually generates water shortage and other severe related problems. Different groups of people give varying definitions to droughts in slight forms. According to the National Weather Service, droughts occur when the insufficient amount of moisture causes welfare and health issues for human beings, animals, and vegetation parts that expand over sizable areas.
There’s nothing unusual for some parts of certain countries or the globe to be drier and to acquire fewer amounts of rain, than others. Droughts occur when there’s unusually no to few amounts of precipitation for a span of weeks or years.
The following are the factors that can trigger the occurrence of droughts:
- Warmer weather that swiftly dries out ground moisture.
- Change of conditions of the jet stream.
- The ocean’s average temperature, which, in turn, has an effect on the precipitation.
- Modifications in the conditions of locally based landscape.
Different Kinds of Droughts
Meteorological
This kind of drought occurs when dry weather continuously rule over one area. When this kind of drought occurs, fewer rainfall and changes in the airflow may be encountered to and from certain areas in the world. People and weather experts can monitor the occurrence and progression of meteorological droughts by checking weather history and forecasted information periodically.
Hydrological
The occurrence of this kind of drought is encountered when water shortages are generated out of minimized stream flow, and lakes and groundwater come in the forms of low levels. This situation might cause the restriction of the availability of clean and fresh water. This kind of drought is easily noticeable by monitoring rainfall or precipitation amounts generated on a daily basis.
Agricultural
This type of drought occurs when there are effects on the capability to grow crop items. Agricultural drought doesn’t only occur when there’s a lack of water. It can also happen when there’s a bad energy and sustainability in lands that are utilized to grow food.
Socioeconomic
Socioeconomic droughts happen when insufficient amount of water has an effect on foods and other goods’ supply. Such a type of drought can generally have an effect on the people’s affordability of the things they need on a daily basis. These items include other daily needs beyond groceries.
Ecological
Ecological droughts can be stagnant to growth of vegetation crops, cause extinction of animals, or cause a permanent change to landscape. When more than one kind of drought occurs, there’s a high possibility that droughts will be more severe and can generate worst effects.
Droughts commonly happen in United States’ west coast, the Midwest, and the Deep South. The deserts situated in Africa are among the other places on earth that get bad droughts. Any places situated near the equator in varying continents around the globe can also cause droughts due to the dryness prevalent in land and air.
Droughts, though, can happen in any place on earth where dry areas and intermittent flooding are common occurrences. Global warming and climate change worsen the severity of the said states of weather.
The following are the different categories of droughts:
- Abnormally dry -short term dryness that has an effect on crops, pasture, and water supply.
- Moderate drought -this drought causes crops and pasture damage. Streams and reservoirs are at low amounts when this drought occurs.
