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Drought in the Anthropocene

Nature Geoscience volume 9, pages 89–91 (2016)Cite this article

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Drought management is inefficient because feedbacks between drought and people are not fully understood. In this human-influenced era, we need to rethink the concept of drought to include the human role in mitigating and enhancing drought.

The current multiyear California drought has severely affected both environment and economy. In this area where water supply is highly artificial, water storage in reservoirs and groundwater abstraction provide water during dry periods, but also increase evaporation and decrease groundwater levels, and thereby exacerbate the drought. In contrast, management responses, such as water transfer and water-saving measures, alleviate drought conditions1. The ongoing California drought clearly demonstrates how strongly water and society are intertwined during drought periods.

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Figure 1: Drought propagation in the Anthropocene.
Figure 2: Hypothetical schematic of the distinction between climate-induced drought, human-induced drought and human-modified drought.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Water Science Research Group, School of Geography, Earth, and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK

    Anne F. Van Loon, David M. Hannah & Sally Rangecroft

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Victoria, Canada

    Tom Gleeson

  3. Human Geography Research Group, School of Geography, Earth, and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK

    Julian Clark

  4. Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Albert I. J. M. Van Dijk

  5. Hydrology, Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Freiburg, Germany

    Kerstin Stahl

  6. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, UK

    Jamie Hannaford

  7. Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Sweden

    Giuliano Di Baldassarre

  8. Hydrology and Quantitative Water Management group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands

    Adriaan J. Teuling, Remko Uijlenhoet & Henny A. J. Van Lanen

  9. Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, Norway

    Lena M. Tallaksen

  10. Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, USA

    Justin Sheffield & Niko Wanders

  11. National Drought Mitigation Center, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, USA

    Mark Svoboda

  12. Department of Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

    Boud Verbeiren

  13. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Bristol, UK

    Thorsten Wagener

  14. Cabot Institute, University of Bristol, UK

    Thorsten Wagener

Authors
  1. Anne F. Van Loon
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  16. Sally Rangecroft
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  18. Henny A. J. Van Lanen
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Correspondence to Anne F. Van Loon.

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Van Loon, A., Gleeson, T., Clark, J. et al. Drought in the Anthropocene. Nature Geosci 9, 89–91 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2646

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