Understanding: the Drought Phenomenon: The Role of Definitions

The occurrence of widespread, severe drought in Africa, India, North America, China, the USSR, Australia, and western Europe has once again underscored the vulnerability of developed and developing societies to drought. The occurrence of severe drought during 1982–83 is shown in figure 1. These recent droughts have emphasized the need for more research on the causes as well as the impacts of drought and the need for additional planning to help mitigate the possible worst effects of future droughts. Drought has been the subject of a great deal of systematic study, particularly reconstructions of drought history, computations of drought frequency, and to a lesser extent, investigations of first-, second-, and even third-order impacts of drought on society.