Within the next few decades, 129 countries will experience an increase in droughts – 23 primarily due to population growth and 38 because of their interaction between climate change and population growth, according to a recent UN report. And should global warming reach 3℃ by 2100, drought losses could be five times higher than they are today, with the largest increase in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic regions of Europe. Droughts have deep, widespread and underestimated impacts on societies, ecosystems, and economies, having impacted some 1.4 billion people between 2000 and 2019, said the UN. Meanwhile, in 2022, more than 2.3 billion people are facing water stress and almost 160 million children are exposed to severe and prolonged droughts, it added. Read: Israeli police beat mourners at journalist’s funeral Humanity is "at a crossroads" when it comes to managing drought and accelerating ways of slowing it down must happen "urgently, using every tool we can," said the head of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Thursday. Through its newly published Drought in Numbers report, released in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, during the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15), UNCCD's compendium of drought-related information and data is helping inform negotiations for the outcomes of the conference when it closes on May 20. UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw said the "facts and figures of this publication all point in the same direction: An upward trajectory in the duration of droughts and the severity of impacts, not only affecting human societies but also the ecological systems upon which the survival of all life depends, including that of our species." The report reveals that from 1970 to 2019, weather, climate and water hazards accounted for 50 percent of disasters and 45 percent of disaster-related deaths, mostly in developing countries. While droughts represented 15 percent of natural disasters, they accounted for approximately 650,000 deaths throughout that period. And from 1998 to 2017, droughts triggered global economic losses of roughly $124 billion – a number and duration of which have risen 29 percent since 2000. Only to flooding, droughts inflict the greatest suffering on women and girls in developing countries, in terms of education, nutrition, health, sanitation, and safety. "Drought in Numbers" paints a grim picture surrounding ecosystems as well, noting that the percentage of plants affected by drought has more than doubled in the last 40 years – with about 12 million hectares of land lost each year to drought and desertification. In the past century, more than 10 million people died due to major drought events, which also generated several hundred billion dollars in economic losses worldwide. And the numbers are rising. While severe drought affects Africa more than any other continent – accounting for 44 percent of the global total – over the past century, 45 major drought events have also affected millions of people in Europe – affecting an average of 15 percent of that continent's land and 17 percent of its population. Read: 16 die in Delhi building fire In the US, drought-induced crop failures and other economic losses have totalled $249 billion since 1980 alone, and over the past century, Asia was the continent with the highest total number of humans affected by drought. "One of the best, most comprehensive solutions is land restoration, which addresses many of the underlying factors of degraded water cycles and the loss of soil fertility," said Ibrahim. "We must build and rebuild our landscapes better, mimicking nature wherever possible and creating functional ecological systems." Beyond restoration, there needs to be a paradigm shift from "reactive" and "crisis-based" approaches to "proactive" and "risk-based" drought management approaches involving coordination, communication and cooperation, driven by sufficient finance and political will, he added. Sustainable and efficient agricultural management techniques are needed to grow more food on less land and with less water, and humans must change their relationships with food, fodder and fibre – moving towards plant-based diets and stemming the consumption of animals, according to the report. Early-warning systems that work across boundaries, new technologies to guide decisions with precision and sustainable funding to improve drought resilience at the local level are also key actions.   End/UNB/MA  

A powerful storm barreled toward Southern California after flooding highways, toppling trees and causing mud flows in areas burned bare by recent fires across the northern part of the state. Drenching showers and strong winds accompanied the weekend’s arrival of an atmospheric river — a long and wide plume of moisture pulled in from the Pacific Ocean. The National Weather Service’s Sacramento office warned of “potentially historic rain.” Flooding was reported across the San Francisco Bay Area, closing streets in Berkeley, inundating Oakland’s Bay Bridge toll plaza and overflowing rivers in Napa and Sonoma counties. Power poles were downed and tens of thousands of people in the North Bay were without electricity. By Sunday morning, Mount Tamalpais just north of San Francisco had recorded a half foot (15 centimeters) of rainfall during the previous 12 hours, the weather service said. Read:Plane crash kills 2, burns homes in California neighborhood “Some of our higher elevation locations could see 6, 7, 8 inches of rain before we’re all said and done,” weather service meteorologist Sean Miller said. About 150 miles (241 kilometers) to the north, the California Highway Patrol closed a stretch of State Route 70 in Butte and Plumas counties because of multiple landslides within the massive Dixie Fire burn scar. “We have already had several collisions this morning for vehicles hydroplaning, numerous trees falling, and several roadways that are experiencing flooding,” the highway patrol’s office in Oroville tweeted on Sunday. “If you can stay home and off the roads today, please do. If you are out on the roads, please use extreme caution.” The same storm system also slammed Oregon and Washington state, causing power outages affecting tens of thousands of people. Two people were killed when a tree fell on a vehicle in the greater Seattle area. Eastside Fire & Rescue responded to the scene of the fatalaties near Preston, Washington, which is about 20 miles east of Seattle. In California’s Colusa and Yolo counties, state highways 16 and 20 were shut for several miles due to mudslides, the state Department of Transportation said. Burn areas remain a concern, as land devoid of vegetation can’t soak up heavy rainfall as quickly, increasing the likelihood of flash flooding. “If you are in the vicinity of a recent burn scar and haven’t already, prepare now for likely debris flows,” the Sacramento weather service tweeted. “If you are told to evacuate by local officials, or you feel threatened, do not hesitate to do so. If it is too late to evacuate, get to higher ground.” South of San Francisco, evacuation orders were in effect in the Santa Cruz Mountains over concerns that several inches of rain could trigger debris flows in the CZU Lightning Complex Fire burn scar when the storm moves through early Monday. Further south, parts of western Santa Barbara County saw evacuation warnings upgraded to orders in the area burned by this month’s Alisal Fire. Read: California wildfire dangers may be spreading south Strong winds were also expected, with gusts of up to 60 mph (97 kph) at the windiest spots in Northern California. Elevations above 9,000 feet (2,745 meters) in the Sierra Nevada could get 18 inches of snow or more from Sunday until Monday morning. Recent storms have helped contain some of the nation’s largest wildfires this year. But it remains to be seen if the wet weather will make a dent in the drought that’s plaguing California and the western United States. California’s climate is hotter and drier now and that means the rain and snow that does fall is likely to evaporate or absorb into the soil. California’s 2021 water year, which ended Sept. 30, was the second driest on record and last year’s was the fifth driest on record. Some of the state’s most important reservoirs are at record low levels.

Dry and windy weather dogged firefighters’ efforts to contain destructive fires that are devouring the bone-dry forests of drought-stricken Northern California on Thursday. An estimated 11,000 firefighters were on the lines of more than a dozen large wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of homes and other buildings, forced thousands of people to flee communities and filled skies with smoke. The U.S. Forest Service announced that it will close nine national forests in the region beginning on Aug. 22 and running through Sept. 6 because of extreme fire conditions and because firefighting resources have been stretched thin by the sheer number of blazes burning around the country. The monstrous Dixie Fire, burning since July 13 in the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades, ballooned further to about 1,060 square miles (2,745 square kilometers) and was only 35% contained, authorities said. Read:Fueled by winds, largest wildfire moves near California city The fire, which gutted the town of Greenville two weeks ago, has destroyed more than 1,200 buildings including 649 homes, according to ongoing damage assessments. About 100 miles (161 kilometers) to the south, there was still no official count of the number of homes destroyed when winds whipped the Caldor Fire into an inferno that roared through the Sierra town of Grizzly Flats this week. Those who viewed the aftermath saw few homes still standing in the community of 1,200 residents. Fire managers were rushing resources to the fire growing on steep slopes in a forested region southwest of Lake Tahoe. More than 650 firefighters and 13 helicopters were assigned to the blaze, and air tankers from throughout the state were flying fire suppression missions there as conditions allowed, authorities said. “The hope is with the additional resources and personnel on scene, we can really start to build that box around this fire and start the containment,” said Keith Wade of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Evacuees from the Caldor Fire found refuge in places like the Green Valley Community Church in Placerville, west of the fire, where they set up tents and trailers in a parking lot. Adrian Childress, 7, painted pictures to pass the time and a special tent was set up for people who wished to pray. Read:Thunderstorms, heat fuel wildfires burning across West In Omo Ranch, close to where the fire started, a bulldozer ripped out trees to build a fire line and stop the blaze from spreading south. While nearly the entire town evacuated, Thurman Conroy and his wife, Michele, stayed behind to protect their house and their business, Conroy General Store. But they were prepared to flee if the fire gets too close. “The fire wants us bad because it’s made every attempt it can to get out of that canyon and up this way,” Thurman said. “So they keep beating it down. And it’s just ... it’s resilient, it’s stubborn, it won’t go away. That’s all we can do.” California’s fires were among 104 large, active blazes Thursday in 12 states, mostly in the West, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. Those fires combined have scorched nearly 4,000 square miles (10,360 square kilometers). Climate change has made the West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists. Read:Climate-fueled wildfires take toll on tropical Pacific isles Drought, heat, low humidity and winds have left California vegetation ready to burn this summer. More than two-dozen new fires erupted Wednesday alone. All but two were quickly contained. One small but destructive blaze burned through a mobile home park and reduced an estimated 50 homes to ashes in Lake County, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of San Francisco. Elsewhere in the northwestern region of the state, two big fires continued to burn in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Meanwhile, Pacific Gas & Electric said Thursday that it had restored power to nearly 50,000 Northern California customers whose power was shut off Tuesday to prevent new fires from being ignited if electrical lines were damaged during high winds. The utility said it found at least 10 instances of weather-related damage, including four that potentially could have caused fires if the utility hadn’t de-energized power lines.

Fierce wildfires in the northwest are threatening American Indian tribal lands that already are struggling to conserve water and preserve traditional hunting grounds in the face of a Western drought. Blazes in Oregon and Washington were among some 60 large, active wildfires that have destroyed homes and burned through close to a million acres (1,562 square miles, 4,047 square kilometers) in a dozen mostly Western states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. In north-central Washington, hundreds of people in the town of Nespelem on the Colville Indian Agency were ordered to leave because of “imminent and life-threatening” danger as the largest of five wildfires caused by dozens of Monday night lightning strikes tore through grass, sagebrush and timber. Seven homes burned but four were vacant and the entire town evacuated safely before the fire arrived, said Andrew Joseph Jr., chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation that includes more than 9,000 descendants of a dozen tribes. Read:Wildfires threaten homes, land across 10 Western states Monte Piatote and his wife grabbed their pets and managed to flee but watched the fire burn the home where he’d lived since he was a child. “I told my wife, I told her, ‘Watch.’ Then boom, there it was,” Piatote told KREM-TV. The confederation declared a state of emergency Tuesday and said the reservation was closed to the public and to industrial activity. The declaration said weather forecasts called for possible triple-digit temperatures and 25-mph (40-kph) winds on Wednesday into Thursday that could drive the flames. In Oregon, the lightning-sparked Bootleg Fire that had destroyed at least 20 homes was raging through lands near the California border on Wednesday. At least 2,000 homes were threatened by the fire. Mark Enty, a spokesman for the Northwest Incident Management Team 10 that is working to contain the fire, said that since he arrived to the area last week the Bootleg Fire has doubled in size each day. “That’s sort of like having a new fire every day,” Enty said. The blaze had spread over 315 square miles (816 square kilometers), an area larger than New York City. Firefighters for the third day in a row had to back off occasionally for their safety and “weather isn’t going to change for the foreseeable future,” said Rob Allen, an incident commander. Crews were facing above-normal temperatures and bone-dry humidity coupled with afternoon gusts that were expected to create dangerous fire conditions through Wednesday, officials said. Members of the Oregon National Guard were expected to be deployed to help with road closures and traffic control in fire-affected areas. The fire disrupted three transmission lines that provide electricity to California and the state’s power grid operator asked for voluntary power conservation Monday. The California Independent System Operator said Tuesday that the grid was stable and with the forecast for cooler temperatures another call for conservation was not expected. Read:Wildfires rage as US West grapples with heat wave, drought The fire in the Fremont-Winema National Forest was burning through a region where the Klamath Tribes — comprised of three distinct indigenous peoples — have lived for millennia. “There is definitely extensive damage to the forest where we have our treaty rights,” said Don Gentry, the chairman of the Klamath Tribal Council in Chiloquin, Oregon, which is located about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of the Bootleg Fire. “I am sure we have lost a number of deer to the fire,” he said. “We are definitely concerned. I know there are cultural resource areas and sensitive areas that are likely the fire is going through.” The Klamath Tribes have been impacted by wildfires before, including one that burned 23 square miles (60 square kilometers) in southern Oregon last September. That fire damaged land where many of the Klamath tribal members hunt, fish and gather. The fire also burned the tribes’ cemetery and at least one tribal member’s house, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported in September. The tribes are struggling with drought-caused problems. In past decades, they have fought to preserve minimum water levels in Upper Klamath Lake to preserve two species of federally endangered sucker fish that are central to their culture and heritage. Farmers draw much of their irrigation water from the same lake that’s critical to the fish. Even before the fire erupted, extreme drought in southern Oregon had reduced water flows to historic lows. In California, progress was reported on the state’s largest fire so far this year. The Beckwourth Complex, a combined pair of lighting-ignited blazes, was almost 50% contained after blackening more than 145 square miles (375 square kilometers) near the Nevada state line. Damage was still being tallied in the small rural community of Doyle, California, where flames swept in during the weekend and destroyed several homes, including Beverly Houdyshell’s. The 79-year-old said Tuesday that she’s too old and too poor to rebuild and isn’t sure what her future holds. Read:California witnesses 7,860 wildfires, 3.4 mln acres burned this year “What chance do I have to build another house, to have another home?” Houdyshell said. “No chance at all.” “I can’t just buy another house, boom like that. I had insurance. I haven’t heard from them yet. I called them but I haven’t heard nothing.” A fire that began Sunday in the Sierra Nevada south of Yosemite National Park grew to nearly 15 square miles (39 square kilometers) but containment increased to 15%. Four unspecified buildings were destroyed. Scientists say climate change has made the West much warmer and drier, and they warn that weather will get wilder as the world warms. They say extreme conditions are often from a combination of unusually random, short-term and natural weather patterns heightened by long-term, human-caused climate change. However, special studies are needed to determine how much global warming is to blame, if at all, for a single extreme weather event.