Droughts and their impact

Abstract

Man has always faced weather and climate vagaries and problems related to droughts. However, the recent problems of inadequate water quality, which effectively reduced the available resources, increased the severity of water deficits. Drought-related disasters have been more devastating than other natural hazards (earthquakes, volcanoes, etc), as far as deaths, suffering and economical damages are concerned. Apart from destructive direct effects, drought events have been followed by secondary, indirect calamities, such as famine, epidemics, fire, etc. Despite the progress in science and technology, man is still vulnerable to extreme drought events. The losses increase due to the continuing development of costly infrastracture, rise in population density, and decrease of the buffering capacities (deforestation, urbanization, drainage wetlands, etc). Understanding droughts, their occurrences, mechanisms, characteristics and regularities is of great importance for the design and management of water resources systems.