What is Drought?

The short-term, visible effects of drought are all around us, like Lake Mead’s “bathtub ring” or municipal directives to cut consumptive water use for swimming pools and lawn watering. But the long-term, invisible effects of drought reach far beyond individualized consumption behaviors.

Drought-stricken corn in Central Georgia, 1936.

The ongoing southwestern North American megadrought is intertwined with the fate of the Colorado River, as it is concerned with an increasingly scarce natural resource- water. The largest reservoir in the United States, Lake Mead, is officially in shortage condition and facing downstream water curtailment. The short-term, visible effects of drought are all around us, like Lake Mead’s “bathtub ring” or municipal directives to cut consumptive water use for swimming pools and lawn watering. But the long-term, invisible effects of drought reach far beyond individualized consumption behaviors. This is a brief reflection on the context of drought- an important factor in the topic we’re looking to explore deeper: the effects of water scarcity in the West.

Drought is best understood as a period of drier than normal meteorological activity, characterized by below-average precipitation, soil aridification, and a reduction in groundwater. The primary cause of drought is decreased precipitation, which directly affects soil moisture, groundwater levels, and ultimately agriculture yields. Root causes of drought include climate change-driven temperature increases and increasingly frequent La Nina seasons, compounded by increased demand for water resources.

A water storage tower, Gunnison, CO. [Image 2]

The effects of drought are experienced differently by various stakeholder groups. The environmental, social, health, and economic consequences are intersectional and not always immediately visible. For some, the effects of drought are immediate and individual- they lose access to clean drinking water in their community. For others, the effects of drought are sociological- a farmer experiences decreased crop yields, food supply is disrupted, and ultimately, a rural town loses the industry on which its economy relies. Less direct precipitation means more irrigation- which draws from water storage that is already far below historical levels. This directly affects the agribusiness supply chain, as water is a key raw resource input for food production.

Conservation of municipal, industrial, and agricultural water resources is critical to the long-term health of the Colorado River basin. Mitigating and adapting to worsening drought conditions is necessary to avoid further curtailment of water resources- but the jury is still out on the degree of mitigation. Some of the more broad historical examples of drought mitigation are water management (i.e. dams and diversions), drought monitoring, and crop rotation. The increased frequency of climate-related extreme weather events and the precedent-setting duration of the megadrought suggests that further mitigation and adaptation will be necessary.

References

Image 1: Drought corn. Central Georgia

https://www.loc.gov/item/2017762972/

Image 2: Water Tower, Sean Alexander

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Geography of the Colorado River Basin