According to the latest report of Combined Drought Indicator, 47% of the EU territory was in warning conditions at the end of the 1st ten-day period of August 2022. In California, the extreme drought conditions, water restrictions and wildfires are now leaving farmers struggling to meet the demand. For its part, China has been hit by record heat waves and droughts this summer, a combined phenomenon that experts say that has the potential to threaten the agricultural production.
The latest Global Drought Observatory report released on August 22, 2022, states that “the severe drought affecting many regions of Europe since the beginning of the year has been further expanding and worsening as of early August. Dry conditions are related to a wide and persistent lack of precipitation combined with a sequence of heatwaves from May onwards.
The severe precipitation deficit has affected river discharges widely across Europe. Water and heat stresses have substantially reduced summer crops’ yields. The most affected crops are grain maize, soybeans, and sunflowers.
Recent precipitation (mid-August) may have alleviated drought conditions in some regions of Europe. However, in some areas, associated thunderstorms caused damages, losses, and may have limited the beneficial effects of precipitation.
Warmer and drier than usual conditions are likely to occur in the western Euro-Mediterranean region in the coming months till November 2022. In some areas of the Iberian Peninsula, warning drier than usual conditions are forecasted for the next three months.”
Seasonal forecast
According to the latest report, “for most of Europe, after a long sequence of unusually dry forecasts, close to normal conditions are predicted from August to October 2022. This may not be enough to fully recover from the deficit cumulated in more than half a year, but it will alleviate the critical conditions of many European regions and of the affected sectors. Severely drier than normal weather conditions are predicted only over western Spain, eastern Portugal, and along the Croatian coast. Less severe dry conditions are forecasted over the Alps.
In the western Euro-Mediterranean region, some risks may persist. Seasonal forecasts of mean temperature and precipitation up to November 2022 from the ECMWF SEAS5 and the other modelling centres point to likely to occur warmer- and drier-than usual conditions in the western Euro-Mediterranean region.”
California hit by the region's worst megadrought in at least 1,200 years
Experts say the term 'drought' may be insufficient to capture what is happening in the West States.
According to CNN Business (August 18, 2022), nearly three quarters of US farmers say this year's drought is hurting their harvest -- with significant crop and income loss, according to a new survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), a lobbying group that represents agricultural interests.
This year's drought conditions are taking a harder toll than last year's, as 37% of farmers said they are plowing through and killing existing crops that won't reach maturity because of dry conditions. That's a jump from 24% last year, according to the survey.
July was the third-hottest on record for the US and ranked in the top 10 for every state in the West except for Montana, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.
The AFBF conducted a survey across 15 states from June 8 to July 20 in extreme drought regions from Texas to North Dakota to California, which makes up nearly half of the country's agricultural production value.
In California, 50% of farmers in the state said they had to remove trees and multiyear crops due to drought, the AFBF survey revealed, which will affect future revenue. And 33% of all US farmers said they've had to do the same, nearly double the number from last year.
China drought threatens to reduce rice, wheat, cotton production
China has issued a nationwide drought warning as the country copes with scant rainfall and one of the most severe heat waves in six decades. The hardest hit provinces are in southern and central China, especially along the Yangtze River, and officials have called for water conservation by agricultural, commercial, and industrial users. By contrast, provinces in China’s northeast have experienced beneficial weather for much of the growing season.
Drought also is hitting China’s cotton and tomato crop, with the Gro Drought Index, which measures drought severity on a scale from “0” (no drought) to “5” (exceptional drought), registering the highest level in more than two decades in Xinjiang province, which grows the majority of the country’s crops.
