By James Park, Ray Xu, Ved Dhiman
Class 7L
Teacher: Mr Iaconis
Outline
The atmospheric and hydrological pressure are a result of the geography of Australia.
What is a Drought?
A drought is a period of time where water in a particular region is scarce.
NOTE-the scale and recognition of a drought is different for each region.
Drought can be defined in a variety of different ways. In terms of its links to climate change, drought is best defined as meteorological drought, which is ‘a prolonged, abnormally dry period when the amount of available water is insufficient to meet our normal use’ and is generally measured by assessing rainfall deficiencies over three or more months
What are issues that is associated with this?
Problems associated with drought can have economic, environmental, and social impacts on both the areas where they occur and areas that have relations with those where the drought happens.
Economic Problems:
Farmers have to spend more money on irrigation for crops and providing animals with water. This is because during droughts water is scarce so farmers would have to spend money on digging new wells or buy water in tanks from other water-rich areas.
Crops grow slower which means less crop yields for farmers. This means that there is less work to do so most farm workers take pay-cuts.
Businesses and industries that manufacture farm equipment and resources lose money as farmers do not have the money needed to buy it.
Environmental Problems:
Water bodies dry out and animals such as cows and sheep have no water to drink
Soil is not moist and is dry which is not good for growing crops
Social Impact:
Health of people around a drought is affected as water is not supplied which could cause strokes and if it is a high temperature day, people could get heat strokes.
Less water means less food production which could cause hunger to animals as well as humans.
Migration, people will migrate to different area to live to look for a better place to live.
Also known as a “drought domino”
Identify
There are many countries in which droughts may occur and countries that are more prone to droughts than others.
Most of North Africa, a bit of Western and Eastern Australia, most of China (primarily China and Vietnam, most Middle Eastern countries, Europe (primarily the United Kingdom) and most of South America.
A map of drought severity throughout the world
A map of Australia in terms of rainfall.
Demonstrate
There’s obviously action taken when a drought occurs, so I’ll tell you what this action is.
Action Taken
The usual action that is taken when a drought or water shortage occurs is most likely mandatory water shortages for residents using water they do not own. Mandatory water shortages can go up to 50% and some residents who choose to enforce their own voluntary water shortages do so usually up to 30%. Unfortunately, people like demanding water when such restrictions are put up.
When Further Action is Taken
There can be further action taken for more severe droughts, though, the priority of regarding droughts is placed after most things. There can be even higher mandatory restrictions and even higher demands are put forth and all goes crazy. There is a thing called a “drought domino” (mentioned before)
The “drought domino” mentioned earlier
Discuss
A drought can cause much havoc and destruction hence why there has been many strategies placed to help lessen the impact.
Strategies used:
Water conservation and storage
water is precious and is our most valuable resource. If we store this in places, during droughts water scarcity would be less of a problem as it would be available for us in tanks.
Building dams can also reduce impact of droughts as it is useful for storing rainwater and is used where we get our majority amount of water.
-Water is a resource that everyone uses and if we reduce the amount we use, we would save that for later for when we need it more such as during droughts. Some simple ways we could save water can be from reducing pollution in river s and to easy as turning off a tap leaving no leaks. Getting our pipes fixed stopping leakages could save litres of water leaving more to spare for later use.
Desalination Plant
As a result of the water supply crisis during the severe 1997–2009 drought state governments began building desalination plants that purify seawater using reverse osmosis technology.
Although the Australia's first desalination plant dates from 1903 and several more operated during the 20th century, the first modern large-scale desalination plant was the Kwinana plant in Perth, completed in November 2006. Over 30 plants are currently operating across the country. Many plants are utilising nearby wind or wave farms to use renewable energy and reduce operating costs, and solar powered desalination units are used for remote communities.
Perth Desalination Plant
Soil Preservation
Preserving rich soil during droughts is important as it will help farmers continue their plant growth after the drought. A shelterbelt is used to help cover the soil from evapotranspiration. Soil and water conservation can be approached through agronomic and engineering measures. Agronomic measures include contour farming, off-season tillage, deep tillage, mulching and providing vegetative barriers on the contour. These measures prevent soil erosion and increase soil moisture.
Explain – Within Australia
Australia: Millennium Drought
The 2000s or Millennium Drought was started in Australia by the 1997. This happened because of weather changes, warm water from the western tropical Pacific Ocean shifted eastward along the equator. This is called El Niño and it caused very warm weather.
This warm weather lasted until 2003, but the occasional rainfalls failed to break the drought.
In 2006, Southeast Australia experienced its 2nd driest year on record. This had a significant adverse effect on the agricultural area surrounding the Murray-Darling Basin. 2006 annual rainfall was 40 to 60% below the norm over most of southern Australia. The state’s average rainfall was the lowest since 1900, with only 108.8 mm of rainfall.
The two images below show the changes in weather and reduction in rainfall from 1997 to 2002.
Commonwealth of Australia 2010, Australian Bureau of Meteorology
In spite of the predictions from weather forecasters that the drought was going to ease up in 2007, the temperatures rose to record heights with low levels of rainfall leading to further dry season and scarcity of water. In August 2007, the Darling River flowed again after around a year of no flows, however, the Murray-Darling Basin experienced their 7th year in a row of below-average rain and the amount of water filling the Basin during the winter of 2007 were still among the lowest on record, though slightly better than those of the winter of 2006 which had been the driest on record.
2008 and 2009 saw continuing hot and dry conditions in South-eastern Australia, with occasional heavy rainfall failing to break the continuing drought.
The effects of the drought were exacerbated by Australia's (then) second-hottest year on record in 2009, with record-breaking heatwaves in January, February and the second half of the year.
The images below show how the rainfall gradually improved from 2006 where more than half of Australia was receiving dangerously low levels of rainfall to 2009 where most of Australia was at least receiving an average amount of rainfall.
Impacts of the Millennium Drought
Beginning in about 1997, declines in rainfall and runoff had contributed to widespread crop failures, livestock losses, dust storms, and bushfires. Such are the vagaries of water on the continent with the world’s most uncertain and variable climate.
The Millennium Drought from 1996-2010 serves as a recent reminder of the wide-reaching
impacts that drought can have on Australia’s people and environment. Droughts have far-reaching impacts on health, agriculture and native species in Australia.
Health
The millennium drought had a wide ranging effects on health including on nutrition, infectious diseases, on forest fires causing air pollution, and mental health problems, such as post-traumatic stress and suicidal behaviour. Droughts also contribute to increases in mortality rates. Declines in physical health were also particularly prevalent amongst the elderly in drought affected rural communities in Australia. Furthermore, drought played a role in exacerbating mental health issues and increasing suicide rates in Australian drought affected rural populations, especially amongst male farmers (Alston 2012). A recent study in New South Wales (NSW) found that the relative risk of suicide can increase by up to 15 percent for rural males aged 30–49 as the severity of drought increases (Hanigan et al. 2012).
Consequences of the Millennium Drought
Economic
The Millennium Drought had wide-ranging repercussions. Drought affected agriculture, tourism, employment and livelihoods in Australia. with severe economic repercussions. Between 2002 and 2003 decreases in agricultural production due to drought resulted in a 1% reduction in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and a 28.5% fall in the gross value added for the agricultural industry compared to the preceding year.. This is a significant hit to the economy, considering that the global financial crisis caused a reduction of 2 percent in Australia’s annual GDP from 2008 to 2009.
The Wimmera Southern Mallee region of Victoria experienced an 80 percent reduction in grain production and a 40 percent reduction in livestock production by 2008.
Agricultural production fell from 2.9 percent to 2.4 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) between 2002 to 2009, with drought playing a significant role in these observed declines in GDP. It is estimated that between 2007-2008 regional GDP in the southern Murray-Darling Basin fell 5.7 percent below forecast and was accompanied by the temporary loss of 6000 jobs
Ecosystems
During the Millennium Drought, there was a marked decline in water bird, fish and aquatic plant populations in the Murray-Darling Basin. The decreased water supplies reduced the availability of suitable habitat and leading to reductions in the populations of many fish and invertebrate species and, in some cases, contributing to local extinctions.
During the Millennium Drought 57,000 ha of planted forest in Australia were lost. This is equivalent to the area of 28,500 cricket pitches
Explain – outside Australia
2011 East African Drought
In Africa there was a 12 year drought from 1969 to 1980. 20 countries and over 150 million people were affected. The Horn of Africa had been repeatedly hit by drought over years. Poor rainfall across the region in 2010/2011, combined with massively inflated food prices, affected some 13 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia in the Horn of Africa and also in Tanzania, East Africa. This drought is said to be the worst one to hit these countries.
The lack of rain had led to crop failure and land degradation causing a severe food crisis and land animals that need water to live began to slowly die. It had become dangerous to people and other animals; causing famine and creating deserts.
Impacts:
Malnutrition rose, exceeding global emergency malnutrition rates. Many communities were forced to move away from the worst-affected areas looking for better opportunities. As families and communities travelled long distances in search of food, the risks of a disease outbreak increased.
School dropout rates also increased following the migration of households in search of water and pasture.
With low rainfall food became increasingly scarce. Crop yields were down and large numbers of livestock died. Pastoralists, poor households and children were among the most affected. In some areas cereal prices increased to nearly 2.5 times what they were on the previous year.
Consecutive droughts in recent years eroded the coping mechanisms of communities across the region. With the 2011 wet season producing as little as a fifth of the normal rainfall, the situation became what the UN’s emergency head described as “the most severe food crisis in the world of that time.
This drought caused severe food shortage across Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya that threatened the livelihood of 9.5 million people.
Many refugees from southern Somalia fled to neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia, where crowded, unsanitary conditions together with severe malnutrition led to a large number of deaths. Other countries in East Africa, including Sudan, South Sudan and parts of Uganda, were also affected by a food crisis. The food crisis in Somalia primarily affected farmers in the south rather than the northern pastoralists. On July 20th it was sited Nations declared that there was a famine in two regions in the south of Sudan. The last time it was declared a famine was nearly thirty years ago. British Aid has been feeding more than 2.4 million people across the region.
Tens of thousands of people are believed to have died in southern Somalia before famine was declared. Somalia's remains the most acute food crisis in the world, with hundreds of thousands of people still at risk. According to UN estimates, the rate of malnutrition, measured by the median global acute malnutrition (GAM) standard, increased in southern and central Somalia from 16.4% to 36.4% in 2011. The 15% "critical" threshold was exceeded early in 2011.
Although fighting disrupted aid delivery in some areas, a scaling up of relief operations in mid-November had significantly reduced malnutrition and mortality rates in southern Somalia.Military activities in the country's southern conflict zones had also by early December 2011 greatly reduced the movement of migrants. By February 2012, several thousand people had also begun returning to their homes and farms.
By January 2012, the food crisis in southern Somalia was no longer at emergency levels.
It was indicated in February 2012 that indirect data from health and relief centers pointed to improved general conditions from August 2011. It was also announced that the famine in southern Somalia was over.
Food security outcomes were also expected on account of the start of the Deyr harvest, which reached 200% of the post-war mean and was predicted to be significantly higher than usual.
Consequences of the drought
With the exception of some coastal areas, the abundant rainfall in most parts of central and northern Somalia replenished pastureland and also further boosted the purchasing power of local herders. With the benefit of the current harvest expected to ebb in May, It was stressed that continued multi-sectoral response was necessary to secure the gains made, and that general humanitarian needs requiring international assistance would persist until at least September 2012.
Annotated Bibliography
1.Climate Council (2015) Thirsty Country: Climate Change And Drought In Australia by Will Steffen Accessed at https://www.ClimateCouncil.org.au
This is an excellent resource which provides insights on Australian droughts history and the impacts of droughts on Australia. This article also provided excellent images and relevant information required for my assignment. I found the graphs in this article very informative and relevant, unfortunately I was not able to use them in my assignment.
2.Roser, David, John Merson, and Phoenix Isler. "'Drought …" International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation. 4.10 (2010): 2029-2037. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
John Merson, Phoenix Isler, and David Roser, engineer in the Water Research Center, discuss in this article the different measures Australia has taken to adapt to its dry climate. They have used many sources, including government pages as the Western Australian Government Water Agencies. It was published in 2010, which is not too out-dated for the topic of my research. This resource was is very useful for my assignment since it explains the impacts of droughts and strategies to overcome the drought.
3. Theguardian (2012) East Africa's drought: the avoidable disaster by Simon Tisdall Accessed at https://www.theguardian.com/profile/simontisdall
Very nicely written and emotionally appealing article to showcase the situation in Africa during the 2011 droughts. The pictures used in this article are very powerful and relevant. I have used a lot of information from this article in my assignment.
4. World vision (2015) Horn Of Africa Food Crisis, Accessed at https://www.worldvision.com.au/global-issues/world-emergencies/horn-of-africa-food-crisis#71P3e3gCH39K1pfI.99
This is a good, informative and thought provoking article in which World Vision has explained the depth of the actual issue at the Horn of Africa. The images used in this article are very effective and the information provided is very relevant to the topic I was researching for my geography assignment.
5. Climate Commission (2013) The Critical Decade 2013: extreme weather by Will Steffen, Lesley Hughes and David Karoly. Accessed at https:// www.climatecouncil.org.au/extreme-weatherreport.
This is a good resource. Not very relevant to ny topic of research but it did provide some information.
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_desalination_plants_in_Australia
This is a good source of information on various desalination plants in Australia and the purpose Desalination. This also presented some good pictures which were useful in understanding the concept. I have used the picture in the assignment.
7.Heatwaves: hotter, longer, more often by Will Steffen, Lesley Hughes and Sarah Perkins. Accessed at https://www. climatecouncil.org.au/heatwaves-report.
reliable resource with good information
8. Collett B and Henry N (2011) Urban Water Supply Use. The Australian Collaboration. Accessed at http://www.australiancollaboration.com.au/pdf/ FactSheets/Urban-water-FactSheet.pdf.
9. CSIRO (The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) (2012) Climate and water availability in south-eastern Australia: A synthesis of findings from Phase 2 of the South Eastern Australian Climate Initiative (SEACI) CSIRO, 41 pp
-http://www.allianceforwaterefficiency.org/Drought_Introduction.aspx
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_droughts
http://en.wikipedia.org/
-https://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/responses/management/
-https://www.unicef.org/drought/drought-countries.htm
-https://www.google.com.au
-http://eschooltoday.com/natural-disasters/droughts/economic-impact-of-droughts.html
-http://threeissues.sdsu.edu/three_issues_droughtfacts04.html
-https://cooltext.com/Logo-Design-Muddy