Water is fundamental to all life. From the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, to the extreme water shortages that have struck California in recent years, modern societies often take its abundance for granted until it unexpectedly becomes scarce. Drought is one of the many problems anthropogenic climate change may exacerbate, but it is also a complex phenomenon at the intersection of a range of scientific disciplines and public policy issues. In this innovative book, Benjamin I. Cook brings together climate science, hydrology, and ecology to provide a synthetic overview of drought and its environmental and social consequences. Cook introduces readers to the hydroclimate and its components, explaining the global water cycle, the earth’s climate system, and the distribution of water resources. He discusses drought dynamics and variability over time, the climatological context and ecological effects, and environmental issues such as desertification, land degradation, and groundwater depletion. He also considers the socioeconomic impacts of drought and the role of drought risk management policy, especially in light of how climate change is expected to affect drought risk and severity. Cook gives special attention to paleoclimate and the role of drought in the crises of ancient civilizations. A scientifically comprehensive and approachable overview of water issues throughout the world, Drought is a critical interdisciplinary text that will be essential reading for a broad range of students in earth science and environmental and sustainability studies.

No one in America would deny that the weather has changed drastically in our lifetime. We read about El Niño and La Niña, but how many of us really understand the big picture beyond our own front windows or even the headlines on the Weather Channel? Hydrologists and climatologists have long been aware of the role of regional climate in predicting floods and understanding droughts. But with our growing sense of a variable climate, it is important to reassess these natural disasters not as isolated events but as related phenomena. This book shows that floods and droughts don't happen by accident but are the products of patterns of wind, temperature, and precipitation that produce meteorologic extremes. It introduces the mechanics of global weather, puts these processes into the longer-term framework of climate, and then explores the evolution of climatic patterns through time to show that floods and droughts, once considered isolated "acts of God," are often related events driven by the same forces that shape the entire atmosphere. Michael Collier and Robert Webb offer a fresh, insightful look at what we know about floods, droughts, and climate variability—and their impact on people—in an easy-to-read text, with dramatic photos, that assumes no previous understanding of climate processes. They emphasize natural, long-term mechanisms of climate change, explaining how floods and droughts relate to climate variability over years and decades. They also show the human side of some of the most destructive weather disasters in history. As Collier and Webb ably demonstrate, "climate" may not be the smooth continuum of meteorologic possibilities we supposed but rather the sum of multiple processes operating both regionally and globally on different time scales. Amid the highly politicized discussion of our changing environment, Floods, Droughts, and Climate Change offers a straightforward scientific account of weather crises that can help students and general readers better understand the causes of climate variability and the consequences for their lives.

The underlying concept of the paper is that the amount of precipitation required for the near-normal operation of the established economy of an area during some stated period is dependent on the average climate of the area and on the prevailing meteorological conditions both during and preceding the month or period in question. A method for computing this required precipitation is demonstrated.

The latest science and compelling stories describing the impacts of droughts, floods, and fires in the context of climate change.

Read and find out about droughts in this colorfully illustrated nonfiction picture book. The earth—and everything on it—needs water. But lately, it’s been unusually sunny, warm, and dry. The weather anchor announces that your area is experiencing a drought! Where do droughts happen? How do we know that we are in a drought? Why is rainfall important? Do droughts just affect people? Can scientists keep track of rainfall? Read and find out! This book is full of activities, like how to measure rainfall, how to visualize how much of the world’s water is freshwater, and how to create a cloud in a jar. It’s also full of graphic features perfect for visual learners, like a diagram of the water cycle, and rich vocabulary bolded throughout the text, with a glossary. This is a clear and appealing science book for early elementary age kids, both at home and in the classroom. It's a Level 2 Let's-Read-and-Find-Out, which means the book explores more challenging concepts for children in the primary grades. The 100+ titles in this leading nonfiction series are: hands-on and visual acclaimed and trusted great for classrooms Top 10 reasons to love LRFOs: Entertain and educate at the same time Have appealing, child-centered topics Developmentally appropriate for emerging readers Focused; answering questions instead of using survey approach Employ engaging picture book quality illustrations Use simple charts and graphics to improve visual literacy skills Feature hands-on activities to engage young scientists Meet national science education standards Written/illustrated by award-winning authors/illustrators & vetted by an expert in the field Over 130 titles in print, meeting a wide range of kids' scientific interests Books in this series support the Common Core Learning Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) standards. Let's-Read-and-Find-Out is the winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Science Books & Films Prize for Outstanding Science Series.

A young girl thirsts for love and freedom, but at what cost? Ruby dreams of escaping the Congregation. Escape from slaver Darwin West and his cruel Overseers. Escape from the backbreaking work of gathering water. Escape from living as if it is still 1812, the year they were all enslaved. When Ruby meets Ford—an irresistible, kind, forbidden new Overseer—she longs to run away with him to the modern world where she could live a normal teenage life. Escape with Ford would be so simple. But if Ruby leaves, her community is condemned to certain death. She, alone, possesses the secret ingredient that makes the water so special—her blood—and it's the one thing that the Congregation cannot live without. Drought is the haunting story of one community's thirst for life, and the dangerous struggle of the only girl who can grant it.

Drought Challenges: Livelihood Implications in Developing Countries, Volume Two, provides an understanding of the occurrence and impacts of droughts for developing countries and vulnerable sub-groups, such as women and pastoralists. It presents tools for assessing vulnerabilities, introduces individual policies to combat the effects of droughts, and highlights the importance of integrated multi-sectoral approaches and drought networks at various levels. Currently, there are few books on the market that address the growing need for knowledge on these cross-cutting issues. As drought can occur anywhere, the systemic connections between droughts and livelihoods are a key factor in development in many dryland and agriculturally-dependent nations. Connects the biophysical, social, economic, policy and institutional aspects of droughts across multiple regions in developing world Analyzes policy linkages between government agencies, public institutions, NGOs, the private sector and communities Includes a discussion of gender dimensions of drought and its impacts Presents a multi-sectoral perspective, including the human dimensions of drought in developing countries