Drought has become a reality affecting the entire world, driven by climate change and human activities. Building resilience to drought requires transformative actions with localized management, while being integrated with national, transnational, and international strategies
The New World Drought Atlas
“Drought and water scarcity are a harsh reality in Europe and around the world. They impact how and where we can live, how we feed ourselves, and the livelihoods of people. The fight against drought requires proactive management of drought risks and a coordinated global approach. The new World Drought Atlas will support global cooperation on drought resilience and provide the data we need to find solutions.“
With these words, Jessika Roswall, Commissioner for the Environment, Water Resilience, and a Competitive Circular Economy, highlighted the seriousness of a problem that affects everyone, everywhere in the world.
Drought and Climate Change
Climate change, which plays a significant role in the global water crisis, is something we constantly see affecting everyone. This is compounded by unsustainable water and land management practices.
The World Drought Atlas – published by the JRC (Joint Research Centre of the European Commission) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification – aims to present all dimensions of drought in an easy and intuitive way.
It is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather to frame the challenges and responses related to drought. It is useful for policymakers, who can understand the scope and location of the problems in order to study targeted interventions and adaptation strategies.
An interesting aspect of this Atlas is that its analysis covers the past, present, and future from different perspectives, showing that drought is composed of systemic hazards with widespread and destructive effects driven not only by natural phenomena but also, and especially, by human actions.
A Global Threat
The message is clear: drought is a global threat, and its risks increase every day, making urgent action at the global level necessary.
Starting with the objective fact that drought directly and indirectly affects people and economies, it is the most vulnerable populations that bear the most devastating impacts.
Drought significantly affects the availability of drinking water, agriculture, hydroelectric power, and river transport.
Indirectly, it reduces ecosystem services, increases prices, and reduces the availability of agricultural raw materials.
In the most fragile countries, drought undermines food security. Here, small farmers rely on rainfall and have limited access to both irrigation infrastructure and drought-resistant seeds.
Drought in Urban Areas
Cities and surrounding areas are home to nearly 80% of the world’s population. When water levels in rivers are low, pollutant concentrations increase, raising the risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera.
Additionally, dry or paved land loses its ability to absorb water, increasing the risk of flooding.
Poor water management means that basic municipal supplies, such as electricity, cannot be guaranteed. This limits refrigeration and increases health risks related to heat strokes for vulnerable people.
The Impact of Human Activities
Human activities and the reckless use of water are the main drivers of the global water crisis. A negative mix of population growth, expanding agriculture, rising consumption levels, poor governance, and inequalities.
Food systems also play a significant role: globally, agriculture uses 70% of the world’s freshwater resources, while at the same time being severely affected by the global water crisis.
Drought also damages ecosystems by reducing biodiversity, depleting soil nutrients, and disrupting groundwater recharge.
These changes reduce resilience to future droughts and disrupt broader natural processes, such as the carbon cycle, with cascading effects on local ecosystems and environmental stability.
What Solutions?
Building drought resilience requires transformative actions. In addition to raising awareness about the issue and the importance of mindful behaviors, artificial intelligence can be a valuable tool.
For example, the EU’s Digital Twins initiative aims to create virtual models based on artificial intelligence of real-world systems to help plan sustainable cities and address climate challenges.
Drought management and its destructive effects require coordinated and complex strategies that involve knowledge of local communities and their specific needs: only this way can effective, simple, and adaptable actions be devised.
In practice, a localized approach integrated with national, transnational, and international strategies is essential. Only a forward-looking approach will lead to impactful policies to reduce structural risks from drought
