Original subtitles

Drought is one of nature’s most devastating disasters.

It can wipe out crops,

paralyze energy production

and disrupt the entire economy.

The impact of a drought on people and the environment,

on animals and the natural world can be profound.

And they can devastate ecosystems,

which may take generations to recover.

Death may come

from dehydration, starvation,

and the ravages of conflict over dwindling resources.

It might not seem as destructive or as instant

as other more violent disasters...

but more than half the deaths from natural disasters

are brought on by drought and associated famine.

Since 1900, drought has killed over 11 million people.

And over 2 billion have been directly affected by it,

more than any other natural disaster.

Water really does underpin everything that we do,

so when we have water scarcity and we have drought,

it really profoundly affects our everyday life.

Droughts don’t just wreak havoc short term.

They can rip apart countries,

drive communities to war,

cause mass migration

and the displacement

of hundreds of thousands of people.

With expert insights and eyewitness accounts,

this episode of Deadly Disasters

will investigate one of the longest droughts in history:

the Millennium drought,

that crippled Australia between 1996 and 2010,

and the unprecedented drought

that devastated much of India in 2016,

as well as a cataclysmic disaster

that afflicted the Midwest of America in the 1930s

and caused the greatest mass migration in U.S. history:

the Dust Bowl.

Our Earth is often called the blue planet.

Seventy-one percent of it is covered with water,

but only around 3 percent is freshwater,

of which less than half is accessible

to the 7 billion humans whose lives depend on it.

We are currently facing a global water crisis

on an unprecedented scale.

And when the reservoirs run dry,

cooperation is needed more than ever,

is often the ugly side of human nature

that comes to the fore.

Droughts mean different things to different people

in different places.

Drought occurs everywhere in the world,

but depending on where it occurs,

it can have a very different impact on people

and on ecosystems,

so depending on where you are in the world,

it can mean the difference between life and death.

Some parts of our planet exist

in a near permanent state of drought.

Arid, sparse of life,

only the hardiest plants can grow

and the most adaptable animals survive.

In these areas, it is impossible to grow crops

without constant irrigation.

Other regions, like parts of Africa and India,

experience regular seasonal droughts.

Here, crops can be grown,

but only during the rainy time of year.

Problems occur when the expected rainy season,

like the monsoons in India,

fail to occur for one or sometimes many years.

This unpredictable drought is what causes the most harm.

In developing countries, though,

people are highly reliant on rainfall for their livelihoods,

so typically agriculture is rain-fed,

so they rely on predictable rainfalls

for agricultural crops to grow,

whereas in developed regions, there’s a huge amount

of infrastructure, planning and policy in place

that manages periods of severe water shortages.

So the differences are quite enormous.

Even though the climate may be the same

and the environment might be the same,

the way that you deal with water shortage

has a profound difference

on how people will experience that drought.

There are four types of drought.

Meteorological, where dry weather patterns

dominate a climate.

When these persist,

the drought can become hydrological

as water starts to become scarce.

Then agricultural drought sets in

when crops are affected and yields decline.

This in turn leads to socioeconomic drought.

Basic supplies begin to dwindle and people become threatened

by lack of water, food and resources.

Drought has far-reaching effects

on both the environment, the economy

and society in general.

Droughts are a different to other natural disasters

because they are cumulative.

So the longer the period continues,

the period of no rain continues,

the more devastating a drought becomes.

And for people who rely intimately on rain

and river flows for their livelihoods,

the progressive accumulation of decreased rainfall

compounds the effects of drought more and more each day.

And basically people are living

with a huge amount of uncertainty,

not knowing when it’s going to end

and not being able to prepare

for more years of water shortages.

The environmental impact

involves the loss of plants and animals

through the degradation or complete destruction

of wildlife habitats.

It may take a lot longer for the environment

and our societies which depend on water

to recover from a severe drought

than the actual duration of the drought itself.

Lakes, rivers,

ponds and streams all dry up

with a catastrophic effect on the whole food chain.

Soil completely lacking in moisture

will become devoid of any organisms.

The remaining lifeless dust

leaves the area prone to wind erosion and desertification.

The economic impact of drought is severe.

Farmers have to sink costly wells or buy water

to irrigate crops and for animals to drink.

Crop yields are reduced or lost entirely.

As farmers lose money, they spend less on equipment,

so the manufacturing sector is hit.

Hydroelectric power generation

is adversely affected by low water levels,

and coal-fired plants can’t operate without water either.

Businesses often resort to generators powered by fuel,

greatly increasing their costs.

Meanwhile, governments are forced to increase spending

to mitigate the effects of drought.

Lack of water can have serious consequences on public health.

Droughts are both a physical process,

they’re a physical manifestation

of lack of water supply,

but the impacts on humans are so potentially devastating

that they’re also fundamentally a social phenomenon,

a social problem,

because ultimately a drought starts off

with a lack of rainfall in the sky,

it makes its way through to a lack of water in the ground,

and ultimately it affects humans,

and it affects societies

with potentially devastating effects.

Drought is often accompanied by very high temperatures.

Dehydration exacerbates heat-related illness

and can cause problems with the cardiovascular system

and with breathing.

Lack of safe drinking water

leaves the population exposed

to deadly waterborne diseases,

such as cholera and typhoid.

And a shortage of food due to crop failure

can lead to malnutrition, anemia and starvation.

Vitamin deficiency leaves people prone to scurvy

and neurological problems.

In countries with upper middle-income economies,

people take for granted that they can turn on a tap

and have access to plentiful water

to service their every need.

Many people think that we have lots of water

and so there’s not a need to use it wisely or carefully.

And in that sense, we can be quite wasteful

with the amount of water that we have.

Also, there is a lot of what’s called "embedded water"

in things that people don’t realize.

So, for example, it takes 300 pints of water

to produce one pint of beer.

The Global Wealth Report 2018

found that Australians enjoy the highest average wealth

of any country in the world.

But no money can safeguard people from deadly disasters.

Living in the driest inhabited continent on Earth,

Australia has suffered a major drought

somewhere on the continent

for 82 out of the last 150 years.

But the Millennium drought

was one of the worst in recent history.

In such a hot country,

even frequent rain can’t protect you from drought.

And for the past 40 years,

rainfall in southern areas of Australia

has been on a steep decline,

with the result that often,

large parts of the country experience drought.

Lack of water has become a fact of life.

Some experts suggest that Australians need to accept

that their climate has permanently changed.

Almost every year,

the country is becoming drier and hotter.

In Australia, climate change is well and truly here and now.

In 2018,

New South Wales declared 100 percent drought.

These conditions spread to affect

most of Queensland and South Australia,

and every region in the country was affected.

Once thriving farmland was reduced

to lifeless dust and dirt.

If somebody had said to us five years ago

that it would be drought or lack of water

that might put our horticultural business out of business,

I would have laughed at them.

But this should really be seen

as a pattern of ongoing water insecurity.

At the turn of the 21st century,

the country began suffering from a drought

that would drag on for 14 years.

The so-called Millennium drought began in 1996,

and held the country in its grip until 2010.

While previously droughts had often been restricted

to a particular region,

this one ravaged most of the continent.

The drought was particularly harsh

in the most densely populated areas.

All the major cities were struck.

In Melbourne, the country’s most densely populated city,

water stocks decreased to 33 percent.

Cities like Adelaide were issued

Level 3 water restrictions.

Watering your lawn was banned,

and things like car washes were out of the question.

Wildlife was badly affected.

Kangaroos were so desperate to find food and water

that they began invading cities.

The iconic koala bear was at risk,

as its only food source, the eucalyptus trees, withered.

Entire rivers dried up.

The water in the Murray River became so salty and acidic

that along a 1500-kilometer stretch,

gum trees began to die.

In 2002, there was so little water in the river

that it failed to flow into the sea.

Some experts feared that this precious ecosystem

would be damaged beyond recovery.

Some lakes were at their lowest for a thousand years.

The Coorong, a lagoon at the mouth of the Murray river,

became five times saltier than the sea,

killing native plants and animals.

Once plentiful shorebirds,

such as black swans and pelicans,

all but disappeared.

And the drought seemed relentless.

New South Wales experienced below-average rainfall

for seven consecutive years

and above-average temperatures for 11 years in a row.

Through the history books, like into the late ’30s

and early ’40s, there’s very big droughts.

The late 1800s, there’s 10 years of drought.

So drought’s nothing new to Australia.

We’re used to dealing with droughts in Australia,

and we’ve got standard formulas

and government assistance packages to do that,

but this is not a normal drought.

Once those really hot days come,

like we’re talking 47s, 48s, they’re typical out here,

the water security goes in front of your eyes,

the dams dry up.

It was as if the whole area

had shifted 150 kilometers closer to the equator.

Scientists described the drought

as a once-in-a-thousand-year event.

The Millennium drought came about in Australia

following a period of extensive decrease in rainfall,

well below normal for the southeast of Australia.

The effects of the Millennium drought

were long-lasting and severe.

Farming was badly hit.

Although agriculture had once been

the major industry in Australia,

by 2013, it made up less than 4 percent of the economy.

But it still soaked up two-thirds

of the country’s water supply.

The wheat belt in the southwest was severely hit.

As was the Murray-Darling river basin in the southeast,

which covers an area the size of France and Spain

and is responsible for nearly 40 percent

of the country’s agriculture.

The effects of the drought scarred the landscape.

Once-green fields turned to dusty, arid wilderness.

Farmers were forced to graze their cattle

wherever they could,

even if it meant eating grass at the side of the road.

There’s nothing to eat,

so if we don’t feed them, they don’t eat.

I’ve used so many different methods

that I’ve never used before to keep my sheep alive.

And-- And, you know, to me, um, I think the policies have to--

We have to do something now. We have to...

I’m worried that this is a trend

that is going to continue.

Australia used to have

10 times more sheep than people.

That number halved during the drought.

Agricultural yields were substantially reduced.

Rice production collapsed.

Cotton fields languished.

The 2006 wheat crop was down to about 60 percent

from the previous season, the worst in 12 years.

Seeing crops fail and animals suffer can be very devastating.

And many people have gone to desperate measures

to try and cope.

They still can’t tell us when it’s gonna break.

They’ve got no idea, so we just...

We’ve gotta, well, run blind, you know?

We’ve just gotta plan and hope and pray that it rains.

The natural world

was making things very difficult.

As the soils dried and the water table sank,

The countryside became prone to wildfires

and ferocious dust storms.

In September 2009,

one such storm created a massive red cloud.

One thousand kilometers long and 500 kilometers wide,

it reached Sydney, where it blotted out the sun.

Flights were canceled,

and people were forced to take shelter

from the toxic air.

With the pollution 10 times worse

than ever recorded, people with breathing difficulties

were hospitalized across New South Wales.

There were some brief respites from the drought,

but what rain did come fell out of season

at the hottest times in the year,

meaning the water quickly evaporated

before it could replenish the scorched earth.

Failure of the rains and huge decreases in flows in the river

substantially affected their agricultural productivity,

crop growth.

And many farmers, you know,

suffered tremendous economic losses,

a loss of income.

It affected the region massively.

They had-- Experienced loss in regional productivity,

and it had an impact on gross domestic product, on GDP,

for the whole country.

After more than 10 years,

many feared that parts of Australia would have to endure

a state of severe water shortage forever.

Then, in 2010, the heavens finally opened.

These heavy rains managed to replenish

a substantial amount of water in the Murray-Darling basin

and bring an end to the Millennium drought.

But it soon became clear

that this was part of a much larger ongoing problem.

The transitory domination of the warm-season weather system

that produced abundant summer rain

did not alter the overall effect

of a lack of rain in the cool season.

This had been the primary feature

of the terrible drought.

In the future, it’s looking like, um,

under climate change particularly,

droughts are set to become more frequent

and more intense both in the southwest

and southeast parts of Australia,

and these are the most populous parts of the country.

So droughts are set to become worse,

more intense and more frequent.

With water

an increasingly scarce commodity,

storing it has become a hotly debated political issue.

Across Australia, dams are used

to reduce the flow of water downstream,

which can help control the supply of water in a drought.

In 2019, politicians in New South Wales

committed a billion dollars

to build new dams upstream

in an attempt to stop the taps running dry.

But communities downstream

say the project will leave them starved of the water they need.

This dispute is typical of the struggles

that are playing out across the globe

over the world’s dwindling supplies of water.

With its far-reaching impacts

on the environment and the economy,

the Millennium drought had a traumatic effect

on the national psyche.

People are now more aware of climate change

and how fragile their ecosystems really are.

And with droughts becoming increasingly frequent,

the people of Australia face an ongoing battle.

Climate change means droughts are getting longer

and more intense.

But they are far from a new phenomena.

America’s most devastating recorded drought occurred

over 80 years ago.

In the midst of the economic hardship

of the Great Depression,

the people of the Midwest of America

were struck by another crisis.

And this one came from the natural world.

In the early 1930s,

the rains on the Great Plains unexpectedly stopped.

The ensuing drought lasted almost a decade

and turned vast swathes of the Midwest

into an uninhabitable wasteland

which became known as the Dust Bowl.

The drought spread and ultimately affected

over 400 square kilometers.

As crops failed...

countless farms had to be abandoned...

resulting in the largest mass migration

in the history of the United States.

By 1940, 2.5 million people had fled their homes.

I’ve lived here 25 years on this land.

Up to four years ago, we always made a living and had plenty.

Now after four years of drought, we have to move away,

go someplace else to make a living.

The Dust Bowl was caused by two main factors.

The first is inappropriate agricultural techniques

for the region, for the climate of the region.

And the second was an extensive period of drought

that dried up the soil

and left it vulnerable to wind erosion.

Lack of rainfall started the worst environmental disaster

in American history.

The Dust Bowl was made even worse

because of the lack of windbreaks along the prairies,

which meant that dust can get--

Become accumulated and can get transported

for thousands of miles,

unencumbered by any friction in the landscape.

So the availability of friable soil

desiccated by the drought, the lack of vegetation

and the lack of windbreaks

accentuated these huge dust storms

and made them the sort of famous storms that they are.

But it was another extreme bout of weather

that caused its defining feature.

When farmers started cultivating the Great Plains

in the 1920s,

they were encouraged to use

new mechanical plows

that ripped up the native grasslands...

as well as the fertile topsoil.

With the grasses gone and no crops to replace them,

the exposed soil dried out in the soaring temperatures.

Unusually high winds

whipped acres of parched soil

into the air...

creating vast clouds of dirt.

At their worst, these black blizzards

would block out the sun for days.

In 1934,

one such storm traveled nearly 2500 kilometers,

carrying dust from the Great Plains

all the way to the eastern U.S.A.

Once the dust is in the air, there’s nothing you can do.

There was nothing-- The dust storms,

some of them dumped up to 5000 tons of dust off-site.

So we’re talking about huge wind-erosion events here.

People just had to flee from them.

There was nothing they could really do

to deal with those effects.

With little rainfall

and the sun’s rays unable to penetrate the black air...

farmers were trapped in a deadly cycle of crop failure.

I haven’t got much feed for this winter.

Don’t know what I’m gonna do.

I’ll have to depend on somebody else...

Somebody else’s feed, if I can get it,

to feed my livestock through the winter.

The dust cloud didn’t just affect

the agricultural industry.

Breathing in the toxic dirt

caused a public health emergency.

The dust began to build up in people’s lungs,

and hundreds of people died from this dust pneumonia.

And the decade of extreme drought

didn’t just affect humans.

The swirling dust blinded animals,

while others suffocated with their stomachs full of sand.

The whole ecosystem was thrown out of balance.

There were plagues of grasshoppers and jackrabbits.

Inhabitants were forced to stage rabbit drives in towns

to round up and kill the pests.

President Roosevelt was even quoted saying:

"What the sun left, the grasshoppers took."

People were helpless as once-fertile farmland

turned into parched desert,

and their homes were buried under huge drifts of dust.

My name is Thomas Thompson,

from the east end of Los Alamos County.

I’ve been in the cattle business all of my life.

I’m 60 years old,

I never saw the country in the condition it is today.

The only way to survive the Dust Bowl

was to abandon everything and leave.

When the Dust Bowl happened,

it was the first of its events of its kind.

It was a huge learning experience for the United States

and Canada in terms of learning from that drought

and that wind-erosion event.

But there wasn’t any substantial research before that

for people to understand how to manage land conservatively

and how to farm more conservatively

and protect the soil during the process.

At the edge of the town,

we came upon a scene

that is part and parcel of an eroded land:

Migrants.

Landless, homeless people.

They had fire but no food.

Finding other work in a country

already in the grip of financial ruin was tough.

Over 200,000 migrants descended on California.

Many ended up in tented camps,

refugees in their own country.

We came out here last year just to--

’Cause we couldn’t make a good living.

We decided to come to California,

stay here and try it a while.

Immediate governmental relief

must be forthcoming,

because Southern California residents

are not financially able to cope with this situation.

The sudden influx of desperate newcomers

led to an increase in conflict,

unemployment and poverty.

By the end of the decade,

2.5 million people had fled the Great Plains

for other parts of America.

That was almost 2 percent

of the entire population at the time.

Over eight decades on,

some lands blighted by the Dust Bowl

still haven’t recovered.

In the long term, the Dust Bowl had devastating consequences

for the farmland in those areas.

It decreased the quality of the soil

through the massive wind erosion events that happened,

and most of the land quality suffered tremendously.

It declined in its quality

and in its ability to support plant growth.

And the ghost towns left behind

serve as stark reminder

of this ecological disaster of the past

and a salutary warning for mankind’s future.

The Dust Bowl of the 1930s

was a drought that affected so many people

that it has entered American folklore.

In the 21st century,

drought is causing human suffering

on an even greater scale.

Some regions of the world are much more prone to drought,

they’re already living on the edge.

They’re already dealing with aridity

and low water conditions.

And in those regions,

some of the poorest regions of the world,

who are highly dependent on rainfall and the land

for their livelihoods, a drought can seriously push them

towards a life-or-death situation.

India is a country

that is undergoing extraordinary change

with a growing economy and population.

But the challenges posed by the environment are enormous.

Monsoon season is India’s water lifeline.

These stormy summer months account

for more than two-thirds of the country’s total rain.

But since the 1940s,

the annual rainfall across Asia in this vital period

has been on the decline while at the same time

the population has grown by nearly 1 billion

and the economy accelerated,

fueling an unprecedented rise in the demand for water.

In the decade from 2001 to 2011,

the amount of water available

for each person in India per year

fell by 300 cubic meters.

With over 15 percent of the world’s population

but only 4 percent of its freshwater,

it is easy to see how demand easily outstrips supply.

What makes countries like India particularly precarious

to drought is the lack of infrastructure

and rapid response policies

that would enable people to survive in periods of drought.

And coupling that with rapid urbanization,

a huge overuse of groundwater

means that more and more people are being exposed

to water shortage

and suffering the devastating effects of drought

because their only lifeline is the rain

that replenishes all the water stores in the ground.

In 2016, the water shortage

in the world’s second most populated country

reached crisis point.

After two inadequate monsoon seasons,

drought was declared across 11 states.

The ensuing disaster affected 330 million people,

a quarter of India’s population,

making this the worst water crisis

that India has ever had to face.

The potential economic and social effects of drought

are phenomenal.

And it really points to the need to manage in advance

and put in place robust plans and measures

to deal with it when the crisis actually happens.

One of the worst-hit areas was Karnataka,

where over 8 million farmers

had little or no access to water.

Dams were holding just 3 percent of their capacity,

and many rivers dried up completely.

People had to travel for hours to fetch water.

With wells drying up,

children were sent down the narrow shafts

to try and reach the water at the bottom.

To make matters worse,

the drought coincided with a heat wave.

In Rajasthan, southwest of Delhi,

the temperature reached 51 degrees Celsius,

the highest ever recorded temperature in India.

Special heat-stroke wards were set up in hospitals,

but thousands still lost their lives.

Many people were forced to queue for water daily.

This could mean they were standing in the heat

for hours at a time

whilst waiting for their turn at the well.

Meanwhile, India’s 800 million farmers

were facing a dire situation.

The pressure to feed 1.3 billion people is immense

and comes at a cost.

Agriculture uses 90 percent

of the country’s available water.

With reservoirs at their lowest levels for decades,

more and more farmers are having to resort

to using groundwater to irrigate crops.

India takes more water from the ground

than any other country on Earth,

more than China and America combined.

Eighty-five percent of the country’s drinking water

comes from these aquifers.

Since 2007,

the country has lost

over half of its water table.

More water is being taken from the ground

than is being replenished,

meaning that this natural reservoir of water

will also eventually run out.

For countries like India, droughts can be very deadly,

and it’s not just about queuing up for water,

it’s about the effects that it has on their livelihoods

through the huge reliance on monsoonal rain.

So if a monsoonal rain fails, crops don’t grow,

cattle and livestock die

and people are really dealing

with severe drinking water shortage as well.

Meanwhile, other sources of water

are also under threat.

It is the summer melt from the ice of the Himalayas

that feeds the rivers of northern India.

These mountains are so vital

that they have been dubbed the Water Towers of Asia.

But record-breaking temperatures

and even shorter winters

has seen less snow cover and shrinking glaciers.

Despite its ever-increasing demand

on a diminishing resource,

a report published in February 2016

stated that India was one of the most inefficient users

of water in the world.

For instance, China,

despite having 50 million more people,

uses 25 percent less freshwater.

One problem is that many farmers have switched

from traditional crops like maize and millet

to those with higher profit margins,

such as rice and sugarcane,

even though these require much more water to cultivate.

Rice is a particularly thirsty crop,

needing 2500 liters of water to produce just one kilo.

During the drought, the struggle

to keep these crops growing on a large scale

was near impossible.

Over 70 percent of India’s population

lives in areas where there is stress

on water and food production.

This has led to increasing conflict

over dwindling resources

and the so-called water wars.

Disputes over water are common, and it’s frequently said

that many wars will be fought over water rights.

Governmental decisions to divert water

to certain areas over others led to serious riots.

The deaths of some protestors caused Prime Minister Modi

to deploy military forces to control the situation.

Droughts can make people selfish.

It comes down to uncertainty.

Droughts can carry on, and if the rain doesn’t come,

then the situation becomes increasingly difficult.

India’s political makeup

meant that these water shortages

became more than just a natural disaster.

Like America,

the country is a federal republic.

Its 29 states all have their own government.

But they have to share India’s major rivers:

The Ganges, the Godavari and the Brahmaputra.

Interstate spats over water rights

have been part of Indian political life

since independence in 1947.

But as the supply of water dwindles,

the fight to secure access to the remaining sources

has got more acrimonious.

Political leaders in Punjab

sparked outrage in neighboring Haryana

when they pulled out of a long-planned undertaking

to build a canal between the states in 2004.

The project had long been mired in controversy.

Work had begun in 1980,

but after over 20 years,

was still not complete.

Across India, many states resent

their water being sent to a neighboring state.

These disputes are often only resolved

when taken to the supreme court.

The court ruled that Punjab had to share the water.

Much of India is an arid environment,

and some states rely on water sources outside their borders.

Control over canals can be an important political tool,

especially in places where it is already scarce.

Droughts tend to cover larger areas.

So if there’s a community in a particular drought area,

they may not be able to benefit from their neighbors.

They might have to go quite far away to get water.

So water management in this regard is essential

to understand these issues when there isn’t a drought,

and put in place policies and plans

to make sure that communities are still supplied with water

when a drought happens.

As natural resources become more scarce,

disputes over who owns and controls them

could well shape future global conflicts.

Former U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon is not alone in the belief

that disputes over water pose an increasing threat

to peace and stability.

Water management is vital for peace.

Without it we will only have increased conflict.

Inter-ethnic tensions have also been exacerbated

by the drought.

In Bangalore,

India’s Silicon Valley,

two people died during violent protests

following a water-sharing deal

between Karnataka and neighboring Tamil Nadu.

During droughts, things can get contentious.

Sometimes resources are not shared evenly.

And in India, there were some cases of water being hoarded.

In high-pressure environments,

violence can break out and people can take to rioting.

Riot police and the army are often called in

to control situations such as water and aid distribution.

Caste protests flared up as a result of the ongoing crisis.

Tens of thousands of people who had lost their crops

were forced to abandon their land and flee to the cities.

This caused the breakup of family units,

with the old and infirm often being left behind.

But with no homes in the city and no work,

the rural incomers were often forced to beg to survive.

Tensions over the unfair treatment of different castes

led to serious unrest.

In Haryana, many flocked to the cities in search of jobs,

and 16 people died during protests in February of 2016,

with demonstrations continuing throughout the year.

In other regions, the situation was getting out of control.

Reservoirs were running dry.

In Latur, the Dhanegaon reservoir

had been the most dependable source of water.

In February of 2016,

it had run completely dry.

Taps throughout the entire city were shut down.

During major droughts in some states,

authorities would draw water from borewells

in surrounding villages

and bring it to the cities in tankers.

Locals could be so desperate

to get their hands on the precious water

that often restrictions were imposed,

allowing only small groups

around a water tanker at any one time.

Managing a drought in a city environment has advantages

in that there’s a large population there

which are easily reached,

and tankering or bottles of water brought in

can be placed right next to where

big centers of population are.

However, care really must be taken

in making sure everybody has access to water.

Conflicts sometimes arose

when villagers from the surrounding areas

tried to stop the tankers

taking their water away to the city.

With a dwindling water stock

and a seemingly endless drought,

reservoirs and boreholes had to be protected by armed guards

to stop people stealing water.

Families were having to survive

on as little as 200 liters of water a month.

Many had to resort to buying water

at inflated prices from private tankers.

Those who could not afford to buy extra water

had to queue at wells sometimes nearby slums

and had to put up with a source

that could be dirty and polluted.

That means that people don’t have access to drinking water,

and eventually they’re relying

on highly contaminated water for drinking.

This has knock-on consequences for disease,

gastrointestinal disorders.

And one of the big effects of the drought

has been a very high incidence of disease

following consumption of contaminated drinking water.

With millions suffering the effects of riots,

water theft and the threat of starvation,

drastic action was required.

The Indian railway

is one of the world’s largest rail networks.

During droughts, special trains were commandeered,

each capable of ferrying

half a million liters of drinking water

to some of the worst-hit regions in the west of India.

When there’s a critical situation,

when people are in desperate needs,

the right to water and access to water becomes very critical.

The cost of drought to society

was more than starvation and dehydration.

For some farmers, the pressure was intolerable.

Many had been forced to take on large loans to buy seeds.

But when the crops failed, they were left with massive debts

they were unable to pay off.

A study in 2017 revealed the shocking statistic

that in the last 30 years,

60,000 farmers had taken their own lives.

It really is devastating for those people

to see what they’ve created literally go to dust

because of the lack of rain, because of drought.

Droughts can be particularly hard on children.

Many can be forced to stop education

in order to help their families survive

by working or begging.

Many had to walk further to collect water,

leaving them open to violence.

The traumatic effects of drought

have a negative impact

on children’s health, mental well-being

and ultimately their livelihood opportunities in later life.

When you’re living with drought,

you don’t know when the drought’s going to end.

You don’t know when the rains are gonna start.

And you don’t know how long it’ll go on.

So people living with drought

are living with huge uncertainty about the future.

The 2016 drought

is clearly part of an ongoing climate emergency for India.

In 2019,

the reservoirs that serve Chennai,

India’s sixth-largest city, ran dry,

leaving locals desperately trying to gather

what little groundwater remained in wells.

Experts warn that soon 21 Indian cities

could be completely without groundwater,

including New Delhi,

the country’s capital

and home to more than 29 million people.

And with India set to become

the world’s most populated country in the next decade,

more radical solutions to the drought emergency

will have to be found,

or millions could lose their lives.

One of the ways in which water management can help

mitigate drought effects

and hopefully make different communities

around the world resilient

is if drought plans are prepared.

Proper drought plans which look at the future,

look at how many people will be in that location in the future,

what climate change and what weather patterns will mean

in terms of rainfall,

and who has responsibility,

and who are the priority users of water when scarcity arrives.

In the United States,

the Federal Emergency Management Association,

FEMA, says that for every dollar spent

to prevent or prepare for natural hazards,

$4 are saved.

Techniques including planting drought-resistant crops,

monitoring soil moisture

and installing more efficient irrigation systems

can all help to reduce the effects

of an ever-decreasing supply of water.

Scientists are also working to genetically engineer crops

so they become more adept at growing in drought conditions.

Australia is one of the countries

most advanced in its strategies for coping with life

in extremely dry environments.

Australia’s quite an interesting case

of how they dealt with the drought,

and if we compare countries like Australia

with countries like India,

the difference in the response by governments,

the policies and the infrastructures in place

have an amazing effect on the outcomes of the drought.

So Australia’s a great example of how reactive policies,

sophisticated policies of water distribution and water sharing,

of abilities to update infrastructure

can actually, you know, make the best of a bad situation.

Since the Millennium drought,

60 percent of residents in Melbourne

now have rainwater collection tanks in their houses.

Perth, a city on the edge of the desert,

has implemented more sustainable systems

with which to recycle water

as well as campaigns to raise public consciousness

on the issue.

What should also happen,

on a more longer-term basis

is not only just building infrastructure,

but changing people’s

and society’s attitudes towards water.

Droughts are becoming more and more common.

While some countries are learning to combat them,

other low- and middle-income nations are struggling to cope.

Water management has to evolve

as populations grow

and the demand on water resources intensifies.

Climate change continues to heat up the planet,

and it is the repercussions from a scarcity of water

that humankind will feel most keenly.

Without swift and far-reaching action

on a personal, global and governmental level,

this deadly disaster may threaten our very survival.