History of Drought (khushak Sali)

Deserts are sometimes said to be in a permanent drought because they receive very little rain year-round. However, drought does not happen only in very dry places. It may occur almost anywhere in the world, in many different types of climates. Places that have a rainy season & a dry season have seasonal drought during the dry season. The type of drought called unpredictable drought affects any place that receives an abnormally low amount of rain for an extended time period.Wherever there is a shortage of rain over a long period of time, there is drought. Drought affects plants, animals, & people. It is an especially serious problem for farmers & for the people who depend on the crops they produce.Drought kills natural vegetation, causes crops to fail, & reduces water supplies. Water levels go down in lakes & even in wells. Rivers shrink & streams sometimes dry up entirely. The dry soil cracks & may be blown by the wind, which creates dust storms. Forest or grass fires start easily & spread rapidly.Severe droughts can last for months or years & kill many people & livestock. People may die of famine, or lack of food. Other people, weakened by hunger, die from disease. Between 1876 & 1879 drought caused at least 9 million deaths in North China. About 5 million people died from drought in India during almost the same years. In the 20th century drought killed millions of people in China, India, the Soviet Union, & the countries of the African region called the Sahel, south of the Sahara.Severe droughts often force people & animals to move, sometimes permanently, to find water. Some farmers go to places where they think conditions will be better for their crops & livestock. In the United States during the 1930s a drought forced thous&s of families to leave their homes on the Great Plains. The area that was affected became known as the Dust Bowl because so much of the soil dried up. Some people affected by drought give up farming altogether & move to cities to find other types of work.Drought results from changes in the Earth's atmosphere that interfere with the normal pattern of rainfall. Some droughts are caused by shifts in the winds that normally bring rain to an area. Others are caused by changing ocean currents, which affect the temperature & moisture of the air. For example, the warm Pacific Ocean current called El Niño causes changes in air temperature that create droughts in parts of Australia, Indonesia, & South America.