...farmers and herders in affected areas continue to sell off dwindling resources. And while places like Mieso do not appear at first glance to be battling drought, there are already areas where the signs of impending disaster are clear. In the Amibara area in the northeastern Afar Region, the rocky sand is littered with cattle carcasses.
“About 30 of my family’s cows died this year because there is no grass,” said the Afari animal herder Humed Kamil, 42, a father of seven who is slowly selling off his remaining animals to buy food from the market. “We’re surviving, but we’re facing a lot of problems. We don’t have milk or beef now. We only eat the corn that we buy.”...
dohboi wrote:Hang in there all you folks out there experiencing the new normal of extremes. We seem to be slipping back into drought here in MN, too, though a good rain is forecast for tomorrow. Generally, though dryness seems to be spreading throughout the US: http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
What happened to the increased precipitation that the southern states, at least, were supposed to get with El Nino conditions?
At least we don't have it this bad...yet:]
FOR HEAVY RAINFALL OF 4 TO 8 INCHES WITH ISOLATED TOTALS OF 10
TO 12 INCHES.
Barren barley and wheat fields stretch across the dry landscape of northern Afghanistan, the result of persistent drought and flash flooding that has left thousands of people facing food shortages and loss of work.
Climate change is a core culprit of such extreme weather, according to longtime humanitarian worker and biologist Jim Jarvie. He believes sustainable, less resource-intensive solutions are needed to help farmers adapt.
But he has not always had much luck conveying the message to some of his peers.
dohboi wrote:
But yes, plagues of frogs are always something to watch for, especially when they fall out of the sky!
The currant drought in California, now in its fourth year, is getting the nation’s attention and costing the economy many jobs and billions of dollars. Meanwhile, the whole Southwest, from California to Texas — with Arizona right in the center — has been in a much longer drought stretching back to 1999. Both droughts are the worst in over 100 years of rainfall measurements.
The longer drought centered on Arizona has reduced flows of the Colorado River by nearly 20 percent, lowered the biggest reservoirs in the country from full to less than half-full, killed off a vast expanse of piñon pine in the Four Corners, and contributed to severe wildfire risk unprecedented since Europeans first came to our state.
Our summers have grown longer and hotter, and our dust storms have become a topic of national news. Last spring, we narrowly escaped an official declaration of shortage on the Colorado River, which would have cut deeply into Arizona’s allocation of water for the Central Arizona Project that brings water to many of our farmers and the cities of Phoenix and Tucson.
"It is much larger than I imagined," Getirana told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "With climate change, this is going to happen more and more often."
The Cantareira water reservoir system providing water for 8.8 million residents of Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, for example, was filled to less than 11 percent of its capacity last year, local officials reported.
Getirana's research, published this week in the Journal of Hydrometeorology, relies on 13 years of data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites which circle the earth detecting changes in the gravity field caused by movements of water on the planet.
Residents of a South African coastal town say their drinking water “tastes like the sea” as a worsening drought affects fresh water sources, according to a local newspaper.
Citizens of Port Shepstone in KwaZulu-Natal province lined up with buckets for fresh water distributed by officials as one of the driest periods in 50 years increased the salt content of rivers, reported the South Coast Herald newspaper. Elsewhere in the province the levels of dams have dipped to about a third of capacity, according to South Africa’s ministry of water and sanitation.
Production that was supposed to reach an all-time high this season instead will drop 5.8 percent, the most in 15 years, after a summer drought and late-season rains stunted plants and delayed harvests, according to SGS SA, a researcher hired by Bloomberg to survey farmers in the main growing regions during September and October. As recently as Oct. 9, the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast a 4.3 percent gain in Chinese output.
The series centers on Eric T. Duckman (voiced by Jason Alexander),[4] a lascivious, widowed, anthropomorphic duck who lives with his family in Los Angeles[5] and works as a private detective. The tagline of the show, seen in the opening credits, is "Private Dick/Family Man" ("dick" being short for "detective", as well as serving as a double entendre).
Main characters include Cornfed Pig (Gregg Berger), Duckman's Joe Friday-esque business partner and best friend, Ajax (Dweezil Zappa), Duckman's eldest, mentally-slow teenage son;
Temporary water use restrictions on the Coldwater River and its tributaries have been rescinded effective noon, Sept. 18, 2015.
The order, issued under authority of the Fish Protection Act, was originally scheduled to be in force until Sept. 30, 2015 and was in place to limit water use to protect coho, chinook and steelhead populations in the Coldwater River during low flows caused by drought. It was also in place to improve conditions for spawning salmon and limit predation during the critical period that these fish were navigating their way up river.
Following a review of the river on Sept. 13 by staff from both the ministry and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), 225 chinook were counted and it was confirmed that the peak of spawning had occurred. Overall flow conditions and temperatures on the river have stabilized and are deemed sufficient to provide habitat for fish in the stream and protect incubating eggs. As a result the order establishing a minimum flow threshold of 960 litres per second is no longer required.
The Province appreciates the water licensee’s contribution to conserving salmon stocks by complying with the order, as well as voluntarily reducing their water use. The Province also thanks the Nicola Tribal Association for providing advice and monitoring information to ministry staff throughout the drought period.
Quick Facts:
•Section 9 of the Fish Protection Act allows for ministerial orders to temporarily regulate water users, regardless of the terms of their water licence under the Water Act, provided the following conditions are met:◦Water levels are low due to drought.
◦The survival of fish populations is or may be threatened due to low water levels.
◦Due consideration has been given to the needs of agricultural users.
Whitefang wrote:Cornfed reminds me of that great funky Duckman cartoon.
kiwichick wrote:bloody hell
when a Scandinavian country is in a drought we really are in trouble
According to the UN, over 50 million people could move from the desertified areas of sub-Saharan Africa towards North Africa and Europe by 2020
India’s villages face a sharp spike in food prices in 2016, as a second year of drought drives up the cost of ingredients such as sugar and milk, and poor transport infrastructure stops falling global prices from reaching rural areas.
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