Early warning signs of a pending drought are difficult to recognise but cities will have to be better prepared for prolonged changes in weather patterns, so that it can respond quickly.
There is an increasing demand for water in cities like Cape Town. The current drought exacerbates this. But there are ways to use and save water sustainably.
Water levels in Cape Town fell to 20% of their capacity.
Lucy Rodina
Building resilience in Cape Town’s water sector will require addressing risks like climate change, drought and flooding. Stormwater and groundwater are tipped as potential solutions.
Spending on older people is an investment, not a cost.
Reuters/Luc Gnago
Agnes Nanyonjo, African Population and Health Research Center
Older people require both psychological and nutritional support during drought and famine. Kenya needs to implement a comprehensive public health response that assists during emergency situations.
‘Tropics’ may conjure images of sun-kissed islands, but the expanding tropical zone could bring drought and cyclones further south.
Pedro Fernandes/Flickr
Hit by weak monsoons, India faces unprecedented water shortages.
Lake Powell, photographed April 12, 2017. The white ‘bathtub ring’ at the cliff base indicates how much higher the lake reached at its peak, nearly 100 feet above the current level.
Patti Weeks
The Colorado River supplies water to millions of people and irrigates thousands of miles of farmland. New research warns that climate change is likely to magnify droughts in the Colorado Basin.
Africa’s scientists are doing remarkable work.
Shutterstock
Global warming of 2°C, the higher of the two Paris targets, would see current record-breaking temperatures become the norm in the future, potentially bringing heatwaves to both land and sea.
Green shoots: a mangrove in Cairns enjoys the wet. Not all of Australia was so lucky.
Guillaume Blanchard/Wikimedia Commons
Rain made a welcome comeback to Australia in 2016 after several years of deepening drought. But Tasmania and the Top End were among several places that did not fare so well.
One primary concern in rural areas: higher temperatures put strain on water and energy sources.
AP Photo/Robert Ray
Scott Power, Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Brad Murphy, Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Christine Chung, Australian Bureau of Meteorology; François Delage, Australian Bureau of Meteorology et Hua Ye, Australian Bureau of Meteorology
New research shows that global warming has already begun to exacerbate extremes of rainfall in the Pacific region – with more to come.
Many pastoralists in central Kenya lost access to their ancestral pasture lands in the early 20th century.
Reuters/Siegfried Modola
The simplistic assumption that the violence in central Kenya is the result of drought mask the more complex underlying dynamics of politics, access to resources and land.
The Global Trends report provides a useful starting point to reflect on what’s in store for Africa over the next five years. And how the continent should think about responding to its challenges.
Wildfires in Tasmania in 2016 were in part the result of an extended dry period beginning in 2015.
Rob Blakers