DROUGHT & DESERTIFICATION
- Within 50 years,
there could be irreversible drought (permanent desertification) in the
southwestern US, Southeast Asia, Eastern South America, Western
Australia, Southern Europe, Southern Africa, and northern Africa. 1(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA), 2009)
- The percentage of Earth's land area gripped by severe drought more than doubled from the 1970s to the early 2000s.2 (Dai, 2004)
- Examples of recent regional droughts:
- China’s
northern region, where 10-meter deep cracks began to appear in fields.
Without drastic changes in water use, there could be tens of millions
of environmental refugees from China appearing within the next ten
years.3 (Sept 2010)
- Having just faced historic floods in 2009 due to a record rise in Amazon River water levels, several communities in Brazil’s Amazonas state have been isolated by drought and can no longer be accessed by boat, only by foot through the forest. 4,5(Sept 2010)
- Iraq, China, Chad, Australia, Mongolia, Africa’s Sahel region, among others, have been suffering drought conditions in 2010.6,7,8,9,10,11
SHORTAGE: WATER
- The world's rivers are
in a “crisis state” on a global scale. Water supplies for nearly 80%
of the world’s populations are highly threatened. Nearly a third of
sources studied are also highly jeopardized by biodiversity loss.22,23 (US
researchers Professor Peter McIntyre of the University of
Wisconsin-Madison and City College of New York modeler Charles
Vörösmarty)
- Recent regional reports on water shortage:
- The Middle East’s water supply has shrunk to a quarter of its 1960 level.24 (Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED), 2010)
- The Tigris and Euphrates rivers dropped to less than a third of their normal levels due to drought.25 (UN Inter-Agency Information and Analysis Unit (IAU))
- UK’s increasingly hotter, drier summers could cause extreme water shortages as river flows are reduced by 80%.26,27 (Britain’s Government Office for Science, 2010)
- Sources of groundwater for wells, which support half our world’s population, are running dry.28 (Lance Endersbee, Monasy University, Australia)
- 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water.29 (World Health Organization, 2005)
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