Droughts

A drought is when there is no rain for a long period of time in a certain area. The word drought is from the Anglo-Saxon dryge meaning the word "dry".

There are four different basic types of a drought. A permanent drought is when there is the driest climates where agriculture is impossible without continuous irrigation. Seasonal droughts occur in areas with well-defined rainy and dry seasons. In these areas, crops whither when there are unexpected rainfall failures. Seasonal droughts can occur almost anywhere but often only affect pretty small areas.

Droughts can be very dangerous. Droughts can cause famines, which in turn cause malnutrition and starvation. Disease is also a threat: inhabitants of drought-stricken areas are often forced to use contaminated water sources. Droughts pose most serious threats to agriculture in the world. In the United States, a 1983 drought caused about 10 billion dollars worth of damage to crops.

Efforts have been made to prevent droughts by seeding clouds to induce precipitation, but they have limited success. Drought warnings should be taken very seriously. Warnings concerning the Sahel disaster were ignored a lot by African and Western governments until it was too late. In nations that have already had a drought, priorities need to be changed. A lot of the droughts occur in overpopulated countries where civil strife and war are crazy. Instead of getting irrigation and agriculture, they spent money and manpower on obtaining and using weapons.

In conclusion, droughts can be very dangerous and kill many people. They also destroy tons of crops. They should definitely not be ignored.