Disasters Floods Droughts
Abstract
Annually, people see many countries undergoing natural disasters including: floods, droughts, typhoons, earthquakes, forest fires and volcanic explosions. Even with today's advanced science, people can not control these natural disasters. The causes and effects of droughts, as well as possible solutions for dealing with droughts prove to be a beneficial focus area. A drought is a prolonged, abnormally dry length of time with in a region, where there is not enough water to support healthy growth of plants, and a sustainable water supply (“Living with drought,” 2007). The amount of drought, people undergo each year through accurate figures and graphs will be discussed, as well as inquire into the causes of drought. Drought brings much impact on people as well as on nature, and many countries suffer from a variety of tragedies as a result of drought. The effects' of a drought on nature as well as people can be catastrophic; and both people and nature undergo different effects from drought so there need to be different solutions for handling the effects of drought. There must be a plan in place beforehand, as these disasters can appear without warning.
Drought
Annually, people see many countries undergoing natural disasters. According to Earth Shock, natural disasters are caused by a disaster by a change in the atmosphere, an extraordinary geographical phenomenon, or a change of organisms; this includes: floods, droughts, typhoons, earthquakes, forest fires and volcanic explosions. Before the Industrial Revolution, most natural disasters were caused purely by nature rather than humans. On the other hand, after the Industrial Revolution, natural disasters by humans have increasing rapidly (Robinson, 1993). In the past, these natural disasters were normal tasks and people's ancestors accepted these acts without any voice of discontent. However, as years go by, theses natural disasters have gotten more severe. Even with the developed science of today, people can not control these natural disasters. Especially, droughts, earthquakes, and floods among many natural disasters bring about much loss of human life and economic value. The effects and seriousness of these three forms of natural disasters: drought, floods, earthquakes have become a serious problem for humankind.
Drought, among these three natural disasters, occurs for many reasons. “A drought is a prolonged, abnormally dry period when there is not enough water for users' normal needs” (“Living with drought,” 2007). Many countries suffer from drought; and the government and citizens do not prepare for a drought beforehand, nobody will be the wiser in future's tasks. If the government and citizens understand the causes and effects of drought beforehand, the effects of drought may be minimized with proper planning. For this reason, the cause and effects of drought and possible solutions are described.
If people are not exposed to the tragedies of a drought, then they will not know that drought can bring about such devastation. Actually, the damage calculated by droughts is more incalculable rather than the truth. According to the Statistical Methods in Water Resources (1992) from 1981 to 1990, drought took the lives of 280,000 people through the world and brought about a loss of hundreds of billions of dollars. Furthermore, populations of countries which lack sufficient water supplies are predicted to increase from one billion to twenty four billion people until the year 2025 (Helsel & Hirsch, 1992). This means that approximately one-fifth of the whole world's population will not have enough drinking water in 20 years. Drought has caused numerous other problems as well. Seriously, water shortage by drought, also might cause human casualties in the future.
Drought occasionally occurs from the latter part of spring to the beginning of summer which is from the middle of May to the beginning of June. This period is the farmers´ busy season so drought could control farmer's agriculture for the year. Droughts have many different causes but there are two main causes among them.
First of all, a drought's main cause is a long period of time with no rainfall. According to the Earth in Crisis (1976), a long period of time with no rainfall brings about extreme disproportion of water's distribution. In this event, it is also caused by water shortages, over usage for agriculture, and drying up of underground water or soil moisture. If the amount of water which leaves into the atmosphere by steam, and the transpiration is bigger than rainfall, then drought occurs (Thomas & Herbert, 1976).
Second, a meteorological confusion can also bring about drought. If a high pressure system moves in an unusual direction, so resulting in an interference of seasonal rain front drought will occur. This prevents a passing of a low pressure front and causes drought. The South African Weather Service (2003) mentioned that a meteorological drought is thought of as a drought about how it would be dried in proportion to the quantity of rainfall of specific regions and the succession of the dry period. This is called “meteorological.” Recently, the general practice of this was used to express the percentage of normal rainfall that is equivalent to the indication of a drought. Many specialists guess that approximately 75% of normal rainfall can be connected to harsh meteorological drought. However, shortage of 80% of that will generate social and economic damage caused by inefficient crop and water supply. Overall, in a specific place, normal rainfall can be estimated by using rainfall figures for over 30 years” (“South African Weather Service,” 2003).
For these two main reasons, many countries endure a severe pain or tragedy because of droughts. For example, according to the Economist (2005), “The Chinese must act fast to conserve their country's shrinking water supply (pp. 46-47).” In this case, even though many other countries are exposed to drought, they are used to suffering severe pain from drought. Droughts can cause people to respond in different ways.
Drought brings about much impact on people as well as on nature. In particularly, drought can have a direct influence on people. If a country is experiencing drought conditions, many people experience a difficulty in life. For instance, drought can cause a lack of drinking water therefore demand for water is higher. This will lead to a fight for water, as well as increased prices for food because of the failure of crops. If water and crops' prices rise, the difficulty of people's living is felt more and more keenly because it is much more expensive. People need water and food for survival, cooking, and cleaning. Eventually, the drought will have nearly drained the country of its water and food.
In the case of farmers, all their efforts come to nothing and they will suffer a great financial burden. Most food needs water to be cooked but it is hampered by a variety of restrictions. Drought sometimes results in a ban of water for food and personal use. It can occasionally lead to a variety of diseases such as skin disease. As well as, some farmers might commit suicide because of the melancholia from a bad crop. According to a newspaper article from Naver.com (2006), “A male in Australia who engages in agriculture, commits suicide, on average, one person per four days, because of drought.” Suicide, in this case, is twice as high as male workers who have another job. The problems of the drought become more critical because people are not aware of these facts.
Also, drought can have an indirect influence on nature, such as with animals and plants. If a country is experiencing drought, it can cause difficulty in nature. It can contribute to problems with smelters, paper mills and petrochemical plants and force them to stop production. A rice paddy cracking from a long drought is not in suitable balance, similar to the devastation caused by an earthquake. Eventually, most plants would die. Also, it brings about a damaged to the natural ecosystem because of a broken food chain. Drought also creates a lack of water for livestock, causing production to decreases, and plant life to diminish.
Drought can threaten many people's lives as well as nature. Shortages of drinking water and industrial water by drought bring about much loss such as a fiasco in the agriculture plan in the spring season. Drought also causes a short of food. As a result, it is not a simple problem because it seriously affects human's lives.
In the case of the history of Korea, if there is a long period of time with no rainfall, Korean ancestors believed that god raged against people. Therefore, Koran ancestors sacrifice to God and hold a shamanist service to pray for rain. After that, they would wait for rain. Even though time, which is a long period of time with no rainfall, is lengthened, Korean ancestors believed that the anger of God is very big so they perform a religious service until falling rain rather than finding new methods (Yoo1., Kim., and Kim., 2006). However, it is just the past and just waiting for rain without any methods are stupid in the present time. People have to prepare for this situation beforehand because these disasters arrive often times without warning. The effects of drought may be minimized with proper planning beforehand. There are some more scientific and realistic solutions for dealing with droughts.
First of all, it is recommended to make to built multipurpose dams which are better than many different kinds of dams in every regional group. Caring for a dam is expensive and if people to use a dam, they are gathering to store a lot of water which would help them undergo the drought. According to the Economist (2005), the multipurpose dam offers many advantages over a water-storage dam and a hydroelectric dam because it can serve a variety of purposes: it generates hydroelectric power, irrigation water, water supply facilities and industrial water. Also, it can control water traffic and floods. As a result, people can gain many advantages through one dam as well, benefit economically.
Second, it is recommended to make artificial rain. In the past, making artificial rain could not be imagined so it is a very epoch-making event to prevent drought. Actually, drought's main reason is a long period of time with no rainfall. Fundamental solution to drought artificially created rain can be useful. Topographers and scientists are already trying the reverse principle about drought so they make efforts to develop artificial rain. However, studying the artificial rain cost a lot of money so the government should improve recycling technology and should invest in a drought study such as the artificial rain. Rainmaking doesn't give a direct profit but previous trials, until now, contributed to big effects for the cloud physics' research. However, successes of artificial rain's skill will be a great help to preventing drought. Also, if by putting an artificial rain theory into practice, it will be good for the industry because it is possible to reduce hail which brings about threatening the crops and it could be possible a fog broom function while the aircraft is on the ground, during take-off or landing. Therefore, it is good for preventing droughts as well as helping industry and the economy (“A History of Meteorology in South Australia to 2001,” 2007).
Third, enterprises can invest in water treatment plants which also improve water usage efficiency. Like an old proverb says, “What's good for the goose is good for the gander”, sometimes some mass enterprises invest part of their proceeds in the government and to citizens', help their enterprises' profit. It means that the government could not invest enormous amounts of money because mass enterprises support it and it can cause the company's image to improve and they will save money in advertising for their company. For example, recycling irrigated water is profitable because it would not need importation, but this requires a variety of technology and recycling machines. However, it is helpful because it makes ones own water use more efficient by using less. Then, if one of mass enterprise's, invests money having to spend much on study of technology and recycling machines, their enterprise's image will improve without a big advertisement. Finally, enormous investment of money by mass enterprises would return their enterprises again so it is not such a loss for them, rather investing in these government projects is an advantage for them.
Forth, the government inputs an emergency rescue fund for people who engage in agriculture. When farmers undergo extreme crop failure, there are tax cuts for the smaller firms in agricultural districts, alleviating agriculture of expenses and inserting precautionary measures for mental health. According to a newspaper article from Naver.com (2006), the government in Australia was already carrying out this project. In the case of Australia, they often undergo droughts because of their climate. For this reason, to prevent some farmers' suicide and the depression because of the drought, the government in Australia decided to rush the Prevention Control Party of Suicide, in on the drought region's emergency. They are expected to invest thirty million dollars to support farmers who run into danger. These investments can help a farmer who is in trouble, as well as, the entire country.
Fifth, a decrease in irrigation use in most of the drought-affected States could decrease the usage of water. According to Southwester drought, “irrigation in Texas, the largest irrigation state in the area, decreased about 30 percent from 1975 to 1990 and acres irrigated in Texas decreased from 8.6 to 6.2 million acres” (Southwester drought).
In this result, Southwester drought mentioned that even thought six states in the Untied States, which have related droughts, are increased population at a rapid rate, water use decreased such as Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas from 1975 to 1990. “Total water use for the six states decreased 10 percent from 60,060 to 54,570 thousand acre-feet per year, and population increased 24 percent. Withdrawals of ground water decreased 22 percent from 1975 to 1990 and surface-water withdrawals decreased 3 percent. The dependency on ground water decreased from 42 percent in 1975 to 38 percent in 1990” because of a decrease in irrigation use (Southwester drought).
Actually, the surest way is to always save water everyday; when showering, washing the dishes and doing laundry. If some people, who are not related to the drought, might be not sensitive of water, they might not know how much water is important to their lives. So, they might be too wasteful with water until now. However, if they are enduring drought annually, they would take prudence using water.
In conclusion, as time goes by, natural disasters threaten to be aggravated. Even with the developed science of today, people can not control these natural disasters. Especially, droughts, among many natural disasters, bring about much human's life and assets' loss. Drought frequently happen so the seriousness of the problem is far more comprehensive. Drought's two main causes are a long period of time with no rainfall, and a meteorological confusion. Also, drought can result in many bad effects to people and nature. For example, in the case of people, they undergo a lack of food and drinking water, a rise in crops and water prices and a variety of diseases. In the case of nature, it undergoes farm production decreases, ecosystem and plant failure. As well as, if a drought situation assumes serious aspects, it might cause death. Furthermore, these disasters drop in without warning so the effects of drought may be minimized with proper planning beforehand. Solutions for the drought are: building multipurpose dams, recycling irrigation water, enterprise investment in water treatment and developing a drought technology. Even thought drought occurs frequently over the world, both governments just attaches importance to dam and so far predicting of drought or an early warning system of drought is not enough. The surest way is to always save water everyday to prepare for these situations because people may always experience these natural disasters at any time. Therefore, people in the world should always remember the importance of water.
References
Australia Government Bureau of Meteorology. (2007). A History of Meteorology in South Australia to 2001. Retrieved March 28, 2008, from http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/sa/inside/history/
Australia Government Bureau of Meteorology. (2007). Living with drought. Retrieved March 1, 2007, from http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/drought/livedrought.shtml
Drying up. (2005, May). Economist, 375, 46-47.
Helsel, D. R., & Hirsch, R. M. (1992). Statistical methods in water resources. New York: Elsevier.
Kim, M. (2006, October 31). In Australia, the government rushes the prevention control party of suicide on the drought region. Naver News. Retrieved March 3, 2007, from http://news.naver.com/news/read.php?mode=LSD&office_id=001&article_id=0001454468§ion_id=102&menu_id=102
Robinson, A. (1993). Earth shock. New York: Thames and Hudson.
South African Weather Service. (2003). What is a meteorological drought? Retrieved April 4, 2008, from http://www.weathersa.co.za/DroughtMonitor/MetDrought.jsp
Southwester drought. Comparison of Water Use in Drought Affected States in the Southwest between 1975 and 1990. Retrieved March 28, 2008, from http://water.usgs.gov/nwc/NWC/drought/html/watuse_drought.html
Thomas, L. B., & Herbert, J. S. (1976). Earth in crisis. Saint Louis: C. V. Mosby Company.
Yoo1, C., Kim, S., and Kim, T. (2006). Assessment of drought vulnerability based on the soil moisture PDF. Stochastic Environmental Research & Risk Assessment; 21, 131-141.
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