Longest Droughts

While the eastern half of the country battles more snowstorms this month, there’s a very different problem out west: drought. In California, 2013 was the driest year on record since it became a state in 1850. The dry weather has an especially strong impact on farmers, who consume about 80% of the water in California. The USDA has declared a state of emergency in parts of California, allowing farmers to receive emergency loans from the government. As bad as these conditions are, it could be worse. Parts of Australia recently suffered through a decade-long drought that didn’t end until 2012. But that’s nothing compared to a 240 year mega-drought that is believed to have once hit California. Studying tree rings patterns and sediment has provided scientists with evidence of a massive drought between the years 850 to 1090AD. But a drought doesn’t need to last that long to take its toll on human life. A drought in India in the 1770s lasted only around 4 years but led to a famine, which killed about 10 million people – a third of the country’s population at the time. And a drought in Africa between 1981 and 1984 is estimated to have caused over a million deaths. If the current California drought continues, one solution may be using desalinized salt water, as is done in parts of the Middle East. But desalinized water is about five times more expensive than the current water supply in California. So it’s much easier to enact water conservation laws and hope some of that wet, winter weather in the east finds its way to California soon. VIDEO