With agriculture and cattle rearing being the only means of livelihood for locals of Thar desert, persistent drought has forced residents to migrate to other regions within the state while many others continue to cope with cascading effects of drought, which hampers agricultural production, results in shortage of drinking water and fodder, and affects both, human and animal health. Crop loss and low purchasing power have pushed the region into poverty.
drought in thar essay
The rural population of Barmer depend on the government to provide relief during times of drought whose inefficient management of relief efforts pushes them towards the common practice of seasonal migration.
This strange phenomenon where the district has registered an increase in average rainfall over the years but also had to face drought almost every year in the last decade has posed a challenge in this largely rainfed agricultural region. While the average rainfall of the district was 275 mm in the last 10 years, it is 343 mm at present.
Of the top 10 disasters, the hazards that led to the largest human losses during the period have been droughts (650 000 deaths), storms (577 232 deaths), floods (58 700 deaths) and extreme temperature (55 736 deaths).
The attribution of drought events to anthropogenic factors is not as clear as for heatwaves because of natural variability caused by large oceanic and atmospheric oscillations such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation. However, the 2016/2017 East African drought was strongly influenced by warm sea-surface temperatures in the western Indian Ocean to which human influence contributed.
Tropical cyclones and droughts were the most prevalent hazards with respect to human losses, accounting for 38% and 34% of disaster related deaths from 1970 to 2019, respectively. In terms of economic losses, 38% were associated with tropical cyclones, while different types of floods account for 31%, riverine floods (20%), general floods (8%) and flash floods (3%).
In Africa from 1970 to 2019, 1 695 recorded disasters caused the loss of economic damages 731 747 lives and US$ 38.5 billion. Africa accounts for 15% of weather-, climate- and water-related disasters, 35% of associated deaths and 1% of economic losses reported globally. Although disasters associated with floods were the most prevalent (60%), droughts led to the highest number of deaths, accounting for 95% of all lives lost in the region.
The South-West Pacific region recorded 1 407 disasters, 65 391 deaths, and US$ 163.7 billion in economic losses between 1970 and 2019. Most of these disasters were associated with storms (45%) and floods (39%). Storms accounted for the greatest number of deaths (71%). Economic losses were evenly distributed among four hazard types: storms (46%), floods (24%), drought (17%) and wildfire (13%).
Away from media attention, Gujarat is enduring one the worst droughts in recent history. The state, as a whole, received only 76% of its average rainfall during the south-west monsoon of 2018. Some regions have fared much worse.
The Wire travelled over a thousand kilometres through Kutch and North Gujarat, the two worst affected regions, and spoke to pastoralists, farmers and families struggling for fodder and water. This is the third in a series of articles about the drought. You can read the full series here.
As a result of the drought, there is little natural grass available for cattle to feed on. This has impacted the economy in these regions, as most of the population is dependent on their cattle for livelihood. Several thousands have migrated to other parts of Gujarat.
In a media release in June 2018, a drought alert was issued by the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), alerting all the stakeholders about the limited water available in reservoirs across the country. According to PMD, moderate to severe drought like conditions are prevailing in parts of lower Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Southwest Balochistan, South Punjab, and Southeast Sindh. Islamabad and Rawalpindi have also become dry due to diminishing groundwater, as a result of excessive boring and increasing demand for water.
Droughts in Pakistan have occurred mainly because of extreme variations in monsoon rainfalls. Because of their arid and hyper-arid climate, some regions of Pakistan remain dry throughout the year, making them vulnerable to drought. By observing rainfall patterns, it can be seen that the number of rainy monsoon days have shrunk. In the last two decades, monsoon rains that lasted throughout the months of July to September, now only last till August. The intensity of these rainfalls has however increased and is a leading cause for flooding in Pakistan.
The number of deaths of children under the age of five was recorded at 326, 398, and 476 in 2014, 2015, and 2016 respectively. In 2016 the district of Thar faced 100 per cent water scarcity as it faced drought for the fourth consecutive year. Jamshoro was also at 62 per cent scarcity level. There was also a drastic reduction in crop harvest of up to 53 per cent, while livestock had reduced to 48 per cent; contributing to further malnutrition and food insecurity.
If we go through pages from history, we see that on a global level, the worst disasters were mostly droughts and famines. Among all the natural disasters, the impact of drought is different from other disasters: unlike floods and earthquakes that occur in a short time frame and on a specific area, droughts occur for very long periods of several months or even years and affect larger areas. On a global basis, the frequency at which drought occurs, compared to other disasters is a lot less but according to a study the causalities reported are much higher.
The continuous droughts in Pakistan have been affecting the Indus Basin since the 19th century. In a report by the Economic Survey of Pakistan, the stagnant economic growth of the country has been due to many factors, drought being a major one.
The drought of 1998-2002 was the worst drought to hit Pakistan since its 50 years of existence. The province of Balochistan and Sindh were most badly affected, where 26 districts of Balochistan suffered from severe famine. In Sindh, Tharparkar was the most affected district. Hundreds of thousands of houses were damaged, thousands of acres of crops destroyed and livestock killed. This drought was estimated to have affected about a total of 3.3 million people; hundreds of which died of thirst and starvation and thousands were left homeless. It was also reported that about 30 million livestock were affected, that included approximately 2 million deaths. The availability of milk products and meat either totally vanished or reduced significantly which resulted in malnutrition and poor physical health, especially among children. The prices of livestock and related products also rose sharply because of the limited availability of stock in the area. There was loss of jobs for many people related to farming. The diet patterns of people also changed to one meal a day instead of two.
Recently, another UN mission was deployed to study the conditions prevailing in drought stricken districts of Sindh. It was reported that despite various recommendations offered in an assessment conducted in 2016, no strategy was implemented to mitigate the impact of droughts, and the districts remained just as vulnerable and critical in 2017 as they did previously. These statistics however, are only from those areas where the media could gain access. Those who died in villages and private health centers could not be reported.
The Chairman of Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) Dr. Mohammad Ashraf recently told the press that the Balochistan province is facing severe droughts as well, with Quetta running on water shortages of approx. 20 million gallons daily.
History provides us with ample examples to justify the need for a proper disaster management setup that specifically deals with droughts. Although it is true that impacts of climate change can never fully be mitigated, no matter how many mitigation and adaptation strategies are applied. But it is also true that the government and international donors tend to focus, and deploy, their resources more towards dealing with sudden-onset disasters like floods, than they do towards slow-onset disasters like droughts. It is also more prevalent that finances are directed towards post-disaster relief activities than devoted towards pre-disaster preventive mechanisms that make those communities resilient to disasters.
The installation of several Reverse Osmosis (RO) desalination and filtration plants by Pak Oasis, with the help of the Sindh Government, was a relief from the hardships faced by the local people, especially in times of droughts. Operating since 2005, these plants filtered extracted salty groundwater for consumption. This provided the local people with cheap, clean water for their livelihood and sustenance. However, as of recently, more than 650 filtration plants are at the brink of permanently closing due to various operational issues. Lack of financing by the authorities for operation and maintenance, and issues of quality control are some of the reasons for this.
The Sindh Government also constructed numerous small dams across the province for storing water to be used in times of droughts, nonetheless water has been scarce since 2011. Little amount of water that is stored in these dams is consumed for agricultural purposes, leaving the local people with no clean drinking water available to them.
Even though SECMC claims that they are only pumping 0.02 per cent of ground water which will not impact drinking water, the important question to ask is, weather coal extraction should really be taking place, considering the area is already one the most vulnerable to climate change and is always drought stricken. 2ff7e9595c
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