The answer to this question is complicated, but in simple words YES we can. What we need to understand is what is causing these droughts. Once we figure this out we can then turn to limit this. This just might be the answer to our problems. You might be able to guess what I’m about to say, but for those who don’t, I’ll still say it the major problem is Climate Change. The warmer the weather the worse the evaporation, this reduces the surface water and dries the land out. This creates times with low precipitation drier than they would have been if the weather was colder. The less rain there is means there are fewer snowpacks which can rise to be a problem. The reason for this is that many water management systems need the spring snowpack to melt. At the same time, certain ecosystems also depend on the snowmelt, the snowmelt provides cold water for multiple species such as salmon. The less snow cover there is, the more the surface temperatures will increase. The recent U.S. droughts have been the worst in decades, at the peak of the 2012 drought 81% of the U.S. was facing abnormally dry conditions. These droughts don’t just kill by heat stroke they kill in mad horrible ways. The first would be near to no water, many droughts have led to limited access to water for household uses, as well as transport, power generation, and agriculture. This leads me to number two, agriculture, if there is less water for the fields then less food grows this means that you have to ration both water and food. During the 2012 drought, the U.S. Department of Agriculture declared a natural disaster, in over 2,245 countries that’s 71% of the U.S. This is just the beginning, these droughts affect our transportation, energy, and public health, to name a few. These drought impacts have inflicted extreme costs on people, businesses, and the government, during a nine-year period (2011-2020) the United States went through nine droughts, each causing a minimum of $1 billion in damages. That 882,325,000.00 Euro, or 85,118,990,690.00 Indian Rupee, or (this is the last one) 7,219,843,208.00 Chinese Yuan. Just think about this for a minute, now think about the fact that we can fix this, we have a chance, together we can save our Earth. Together we can save the only home humankind has ever known. Remember, be prepared, be aware, be an awareness spreader.
-Kaavya Nanda