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Page added on June 7, 2017
The Relentless March of Drought – That ‘Horseman of the Apocalypse’
By 2025 –that’s in less than 8 years from today– 1.8 billion people will experience absolute water scarcity, and two thirds of the world will be living under water-stressed conditions. Now it is feared that advancing drought and deserts, growing water scarcity and decreasing food security may provoke a huge ‘tsunami” of climate refugees and migrants.
No wonder then that a major United Nations Convention calls drought ‘one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.’ See what the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) says in this regard.
By 2050, the demand for water is expected to increase by 50 per cent. As populations increase, especially in dry-land areas, more and more people are becoming dependent on fresh water supplies in land that are becoming degraded, the Bonn-based Convention secretariat warns.
Water scarcity is one of the greatest challenges of the twenty-first century, it underlines, adding that drought and water scarcity are considered to be the most far-reaching of all natural disasters, causing short and long-term economic and ecological losses as well as significant secondary and tertiary impacts.
To mitigate these impacts, drought preparedness that responds to human needs, while preserving environmental quality and ecosystems, requires involvement of all stakeholders including water users and water providers to achieve solutions for drought, explains UNCCD.
“Drought, a complex and slowly encroaching natural hazard with significant and pervasive socio-economic and environmental impacts, is known to cause more deaths and displace more people than any other natural disaster.”
Drought, Water Scarcity and Refugees
On this, Monique Barbut, UNCCD Executive Secretary, reminds that the world’s drought-prone and water scarce regions are often the main sources of refugees.
Neither desertification nor drought on its own causes conflict or forced migration, but they can increase the risk of conflict and intensify on-going conflicts, she explains.
“Converging factors like political tension, weak institutions, economic marginalisation, lack of social safety nets or group rivalries create the conditions that make people unable to cope. The continuous drought and water scarcity from 2006 to 2010 in Syria is a recent well-known example.”
Displacing 135 Million People by 2045?
According to Convention, the geo-political and security challenges the world faces are complex, but a better implementing good land management practices can simultaneously help populations adapt to climate change and build resilience to drought; reduce the risk of forced migration and conflict over dwindling natural resources and secure sustainable agricultural and energy production.
“Land truly is the glue that holds our societies together. Reversing the effects of land degradation and desertification through sustainable land management (SLM) is not only achievable; it is the logical, cost-effective next step for national and international development agendas…”
UNCCD informs that 12 million hectares of productive land become barren every year due to desertification and drought alone, which is a lost opportunity to produce 20 million tons of grain. “We cannot afford to keep degrading land when we are expected to increase food production by 70 per cent by 2050 to feed the entire world population.”
“Sustainable intensification of food production, with fewer inputs, that avoids further deforestation and cropland expansion into vulnerable areas should be a priority for action for policy makers, investors and smallholder farmers.”
Meantime, the Convention’s secretariat reports that the increase in droughts and flash floods that are stronger, more frequent and widespread is destroying the land – the Earth’s main fresh water store.
“Droughts kill more people than any other single weather-related catastrophe and conflicts among communities over water scarcity are gathering pace. Over 1 billion people today have no access to water, and demand will increase by 30 per cent by 2030.”
National Security, Migration
With up to 40 per cent of all intrastate conflicts in the past 60 years are linked to the control and allocation of natural resources, the exposure of more and more poor people to water scarcity and hunger opens the door to the failure of fragile states and regional conflicts, according to UNCCD.
“Non-state actor groups are increasingly taking advantage of large cross-border migration flows and abandoned lands. Where natural assets including land are poorly managed, violence might become the dominant means of resource control, forcing natural resource assets out of the hands of legitimate government.”
The number of international migrants worldwide has continued to grow rapidly over the past fifteen years reaching 244 million in 2015, up from 222 million in 2010 and 173 million in 2000.
Here, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification reminds that behind these numbers is the links between migration and development challenges, in particular, the consequences of environmental degradation, political instability, food insecurity and poverty and the importance of addressing the push and pull factors, and the root causes of irregular migration.
Losing productive land is driving people to make risky life choices, it adds and explains that in rural areas where people depend on scarce productive land resources, land degradation is a driver of forced migration.
“Africa is particularly susceptible since more than 90 per vent of our economy depends on a climate-sensitive natural resource base like rain-fed, subsistence agriculture. Unless we change the way we manage our land, in the next 30 years we may leave a billion or more vulnerable poor people with little choice but to fight or flee.”
Improving yields and land productivity will allow the time to increase food security and income of the users of the land and the poorest farmers, the UNCCD recommends. “This in turn stabilises the income of the rural population and avoids unnecessary movement of people.”
The UN Convention to Combat Desertification works with partners such as the International Organization for Migration to address the challenges arising from land degradation, large-scale population movements and their consequences, while aiming to demonstrate how the international community could leverage the skills and capacities of migrants along with the remittances, sent home by migrants, to build resilience.
16 Comments on "The Relentless March of Drought – That ‘Horseman of the Apocalypse’"
Go Speed Racer on Wed, 7th Jun 2017 7:51 pm
Too many poor people breeding like rabbits.
If they run out of water, maybe they will stop breeding.
If they have no more water, they will have to drink soda pop.
deadlykillerbeaz on Wed, 7th Jun 2017 8:17 pm
Desertification comes and goes, just like everything else on this godforsaken planrt..
Do Re Mi
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie
Lots of folks back East, they say, is leavin’ home every day,
Beatin’ the hot old dusty way to the California line.
‘Cross the desert sands they roll, gettin’ out of that old dust bowl,
They think they’re goin’ to a sugar bowl, but here’s what they find
Now, the police at the port of entry say,
“You’re number fourteen thousand for today.”
Oh, if you ain’t got the do re mi, folks, you ain’t got the do re mi,
Why, you better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee.
California is a garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see;
But believe it or not, you won’t find it so hot
If you ain’t got the do re mi.
You want to buy you a home or a farm, that can’t deal nobody harm,
Or take your vacation by the mountains or sea.
Don’t swap your old cow for a car, you better stay right where you are,
Better take this little tip from me.
‘Cause I look through the want ads every day
But the headlines on the papers always say:
If you ain’t got the do re mi, boys, you ain’t got the do re mi,
Why, you better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee.
California is a garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see;
But believe it or not, you won’t find it so hot
If you ain’t got the do re mi.
http://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Do_Re_Mi.htm
Go Speed Racer on Thu, 8th Jun 2017 12:38 am
Well, at least give that a link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qCpFn1iIqk
While you are at it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z6OEqc0uS0
Lucifer on Thu, 8th Jun 2017 1:51 am
Once all the horsemen are finished doing what they do, drought will not be a problem, i can assure you.
dooma on Thu, 8th Jun 2017 3:24 am
Dam every single damn river! Useless things that they are. Just spilling all of that sweet rainwater into the ungrateful salty sea.
Suck every aquifer down, they sure will replace em’selves next time it does rain. It is gunna rain again like the old times aint it?
Dying of thirst couldn’t be too bad I guess? You would just feel like u was gunna swallow ya tongue.
Now excuse me while I flush the toilet with drinking water and whistle “we so smart”
Davy on Thu, 8th Jun 2017 6:03 am
Water has always been an issue for most late term civilizations and ours is no different. Water scarcity has profound impacts beyond just human needs of food and drink. Energy and industry need huge amounts of water. Population is not going to go down by any managed effort. Demographic transitions from increasing education and development will not scale in size and time with continued population growth. This means there are no solutions to water scarcity. The other inconvenient reality to overpopulation with water scarcity is people will destroy their watershed because of overpopulation and scarcity. Desertification is relentlessly marching across vast regions because of overpopulation is driving bad behavior that is many times just desperate behavior.
We now have abrupt climate change and its partially unknown effects. Too much and too little water is destructive. When this occurs together in patterns it is very disruptive. We have seen one result of abrupt climate change manifested as embedded patters that last far longer than the past. These patterns are increasingly being combined with drought and flood in succession.
We have an aging infrastructure wasting water and industrial development ruining water. We only need to look to Asia and see vast watersheds destroyed by development. We can look to North and South America and see agricultural destruction of aquifers and river systems. This is a global phenomenon and it points to just another of the driving forces of collapse of which there are several. Water is one of those resources of minimums. These minimums cannot be breached. Increasingly water minimums are being breached.
What can be done since population is not manageable with scale in time or size? Mitigation efforts are important but we are fighting a losing battle. We are a civilization based on growth and now require growth to support vast populations. This population support is both through the complexity of the developed world and the simple situation of numbers of people needing water in both the1st and 3rd world. Many of the mitigating efforts are degrowth strategies. Use less water in agriculture of limit industry and development. Yet, that has a knock on effect with growth. We can’t degrowth without losing people and nations in a black hole of failed human systems.
This all gets back to catch 22’s that are everywhere we turn. Of course we are slow boiling in our water wastelands. Water scarcity is not immediately catastrophic just as drought is a slow killer. What water will do is be one of those influences on other minimums like energy, food, and economic activity that will cause failures locally, nationally, and increasingly globally. Our planetary system is likewise feeling the effect of human water scarcity. As we struggle with our water problems we pass these issues on to the planet’s ecosystems. Ecosystems are in decline or failure everywhere an important reason for these failures are water based issues.
The best you can do is adapt locally. If you are in a water stressed area with large populations get the hell out. Anyone reading this and living in Las Vegas would be wise to move. Las Vegas is just an obvious example there are hundreds of global examples and these are increasing daily because of climate change, over development and over population.
Hello on Thu, 8th Jun 2017 6:11 am
Don’t despair, high performance breeders. There’s stupid europe + stupid america. They will import you so you can continue breeding.
deadlykillerbeaz on Thu, 8th Jun 2017 6:16 am
https://ca.water.usgs.gov/land_subsidence/
Take a look at the grade pole and where the land level was in 1925.
onlooker on Thu, 8th Jun 2017 7:26 am
Another of the markers on the road to the possible extinction of much of the life on Eath
Jef on Thu, 8th Jun 2017 8:21 am
No water without oil
no oil without water
ALCIADA-MOLE on Thu, 8th Jun 2017 9:53 am
peak water is a lot more scary than peak oil.
Sissyfuss on Thu, 8th Jun 2017 10:15 am
I guess even with parched lips, the dopamine is still delivered to the brain while knocking up the old lady. Delightfully Darwinian.
bobinget on Thu, 8th Jun 2017 1:38 pm
It not like we aren’t doing something about water scarcity. We are.
Everything we are looking at and doing involve energy.
Interestedly, nations living with scarcity the longest are far ahead of those with water a plenty.
Saudi Arabia wasted inherited water growing crops like alfalfa, cotton, and grains, all water intensive.
Maybe they believed as with oil, water would never run out. Well, it did. Now Saudi Arabia need to import every food, except dates.
(treated saltwater is used for oil well water-flood)
In 2015 KSA began substituting PV’s for oil to generate electric power.In 2016 KSA got busy replacing diesel with PV’s to desalinate sea water.
This year, The Saudis are building the biggest solar
array in the world.
The Israelis invented drip irrigation. Sure, they are stealing water from the former indigenous population of Palestine. But, no one can say Israelis are waisting a single drop.
Ive spent time on islands with no water.
Toilets are flushed with salt water.
Showers are taken with brackish water.
Cooking is done using ocean water whenever possible. In the Bahamas and every other arid country, cement water catchments litter hillsides.
In the developed word, we need to reuse ALL our ‘waste’ water.
Pipelines to pump water from the have too much to the have too little.
I use solar to pump water up hill for later storage and use. I use a couple of older PV panels for energy. Think about it. With a storage tank or ‘battery’ my solar powered pump only functions with sunshine. So what? Water pumps need only work a few hours a day.
Here’s a truly heartbreaking truth.
Pakistan is currently trying to deal with way too much water. Million year old ice is melting at unprecedented speed. Flood control measures are everywhere. WHEN all the historic water sources melt, what then?
Apneaman on Thu, 8th Jun 2017 1:50 pm
India’s Rising Temperatures Are Deadly: Study
“New Delhi (AP) — India is now two and a half times more likely to experience a deadly heat wave than a half century ago, and all it took was an increase in the average temperature of just 0.5 degrees Celsius (less than 1 degree Fahrenheit), a new study shows.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-08/india-s-rising-temperatures-are-already-deadly-study-shows
A min of 2.65 C above the 1880 baseline (CURRENTLY 1.2 ABOVE 1880)is already baked in and the higher estimates are upwards of 7C later this century. There are NO major grain crops that can withstand a 4C world.
Apneaman on Thu, 8th Jun 2017 1:54 pm
Well at least south Florida got some drought relief….the hard way.
“Record-breaking waves of rain drenched South Florida on Wednesday — flooding neighborhoods, forcing people to paddle canoes and kayaks to get around, leading Sawgrass Mills to close its doors — and it’s not over yet.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/article154781224.html
Rain bombs keep falling on their heads
Apneaman on Thu, 8th Jun 2017 1:59 pm
Sask. heat wave breaks 11 weather records
“A heat wave that made Saskatchewan the hottest place in Canada on Thursday afternoon broke records and prompted Environment Canada to issue heat warnings for parts of the province.
A total of 11 daily records for high temperatures were broken Thursday.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/environment-canada-heat-warning-1.4140911
Sask – I have that tattooed on my dick in 1″ letters and when it gets hard it reads “Saskatchewan”