August 2022
There are droughts in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.
* UN lists 23 countries that are in severe drought: Afghanistan, Angola, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Chile, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lesotho, Mali, Mauritania, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Pakistan, the United States and Zambia.
* U.S. officials declared the first-ever water shortage from the Colorado river that serves 40 million people in the West. Water levels at the largest reservoir on the Colorado River — Lake Mead — have fallen to record lows. Along its perimeter, a white “bathtub ring” of minerals outlines where the high water line once stood, underscoring the acute water challenges for a region facing a growing population and a drought that is being worsened by hotter, drier weather brought on by climate change.
* The silvery blue waters of the Great Salt Lake sprawl across the Utah desert, having covered an area nearly the size of Delaware for much of history. For years, though, the largest natural lake west of the Mississippi River has been shrinking. And a drought gripping the American West could make this year the worst yet.
* Baby salmon are dying by the thousands in one California river, and an entire run of endangered salmon could be wiped out in another. Fishermen who make their living off adult salmon, once they enter the Pacific Ocean, are sounding the alarm as blistering heat waves and extended drought in the U.S.
* Extreme drought in northern Mexico has left millions of residents without water.
* From the Atacama Desert to Patagonia, a 13-year megadrought is straining Chile’s freshwater resources to breaking point.
* As Europe’s rivers run dry in a devastating drought that scientists say could prove the worst in 500 years, their receding waters are revealing long-hidden artefacts, from Roman camps to ghost villages and second world war shipwrecks. The so-called “hunger stone” at Děčín is one of dozens in central European rivers engraved to mark their levels during historic droughts – and warn future generations of the famine and hardship likely to follow each time they became visible.
* More and more droughts: How both India and the world is getting affected and what it will lead to. The head of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, Ibrahim Thiaw, has said that “Humanity is at a crossroads” when it comes to managing drought, and accelerating means of slowing it down must happen “urgently, using every tool we can.
* Pakistan is one of the top 23 countries suffering from a severe drought emergency, a statement issued by the Ministry of Climate Change said. Desertification caused by human and environmental factors has left Pakistan scarred, leading to environmental degradation, loss of soil fertility, loss of biodiversity, and reduction in land productivity, exacerbating the vulnerability of the country’s fragile local communities.
* China issues nationwide drought alert amid extreme heat. A record-breaking 262 weather stations tied or broke their highest temperature on record during the long-running heat wave, which has increased in intensity during the past week. At least 244 cities across China could experience temperatures above 104°F (40°C) on Friday and more than 400 additional cities could see temperatures above 98°F (37°C). The Poyang Lake in central China’s Jiangxi province has shrunk to a quarter of its normal size for this time of year and some 66 rivers in 34 counties in southwestern China have dried up,
* UN food agency scales up assistance for Horn of Africa as millions suffer from drought. Levels of hunger soar in Horn of Africa after back-to-back droughts, threat of famine looms, says World Food Program. Since the start of the year, 9 million more people have slipped into severe food insecurity across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, leaving 22 million people struggling to find enough food to eat, WFP’s regional office in Nairobi said in a statement. “People here have been waiting years for rain – but they cannot wait any longer for life-saving food assistance. The world needs to act now to protect the most vulnerable communities from the threat of widespread famine in the Horn of Africa,” Beasley said.
* In Texas, the heat and lack of rain have uncovered dinosaur tracks from 113 million years ago. “Due to the excessive drought conditions this past summer, the river dried up completely in most locations, allowing for more tracks to be uncovered here in the park,” the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said in a statement.
* A drought and heat wave in southwestern China have revealed 600-year-old Buddhist statues on a rocky outcrop in the Yangtze River.
