Intro to Drought
I was looking for an answer to my question; what is drought, and I stumbled across this handout by J.D. Salas on that very topic. There is more aspects to drought than just no precipitation. The basic definition of drought has been dumbed down so most people can understand. Salas used this definition “drought is a persistent period of deficient precipitation resulting in extensive damage to crops, resulting in loss of yield.” There are other definitions of drought that help further explain its complexities. Four of the definitions of drought are: meteorological, hydrological, agricultural and socioeconomic. The Meteorological drought is a prolonged period of uncharacteristically little to no precipitation that causes a scarcity of water unbalancing the hydrologic cycle. Agricultural drought is an absence of precipitation that causes a negatively alters crop growth and range. Hydrologic drought occurs when there is an extended time of lower than normal water in streams, reservoirs, aquifers, lakes and soils. Socioeconomic drought looks at the supply and demand aspects of drought that impact society.
I was looking for an answer to my question; what is drought, and I stumbled across this handout by J.D. Salas on that very topic. There is more aspects to drought than just no precipitation. The basic definition of drought has been dumbed down so most people can understand. Salas used this definition “drought is a persistent period of deficient precipitation resulting in extensive damage to crops, resulting in loss of yield.” There are other definitions of drought that help further explain its complexities. Four of the definitions of drought are: meteorological, hydrological, agricultural and socioeconomic. The Meteorological drought is a prolonged period of uncharacteristically little to no precipitation that causes a scarcity of water unbalancing the hydrologic cycle. Agricultural drought is an absence of precipitation that causes a negatively alters crop growth and range. Hydrologic drought occurs when there is an extended time of lower than normal water in streams, reservoirs, aquifers, lakes and soils. Socioeconomic drought looks at the supply and demand aspects of drought that impact society.
In the article "Drought 2002 in Colorado” by Pielke and associates, it discussed the cause of the water issues and what made them as bad as they are now. The article explained why water levels are so low and also explained what the dangers are with a severe drought,including fire danger and importantly water shortages. In 1999 when the rainfall was less than normal and with higher temperatures in the year snowpack, precipitation, stream flow, and reservoir storage were affected by and made the drought worse. We need to be conscious of the amount of water we consume and how we develop the land.
Questions
What are underlying issues making drought problems worse? what can we learn from previous droughts?
What are underlying issues making drought problems worse? what can we learn from previous droughts?
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