A scoping review of drought impacts on health and society in North America

Sugg, Margaret M.; Runkle, Jennifer D.; Leeper, Ronald D.; Bagli, Hannah; Golden, Andrew; Handwerger, Leah Hart; Magee, Tatiana; Moreno, C Rodríguez; Reed-Kelly, Rhiannon; Taylor, Michelle L.; Woolard, Sarah

doi:10.1007/s10584-020-02848-6

Cited by 41 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…Drought is a natural and complex phenomenon that is defined as a reduction of moisture within the hydrological cycle below normal levels that, over time, can have wide‐ranging and cascading societal effects on agriculture, water quality, industry, and human health (Riebsame et al ., 1991; Wilhite, 2000; Heim, 2002; Sugg et al ., 2020). In the United States (U.S.), 18 of the past 20 years have had drought‐induced agricultural losses (i.e., crop yields and livestock) exceeding a billion dollars, with an adjusted average loss of $6.97 billion and 26 heat stress‐related deaths per year (NOAA, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, there are well‐known drought impacts on forest fire fuel and combustibility that influence not only the acreage burned, but also the intensity, severity, and frequency of forest fires (Littell et al ., 2016). However, there are less well understood impacts of drought on water quality (i.e., harmful algae blooms), human health (i.e., Valley Fever, Lyme disease) and critical infrastructure (i.e., electrical grid, industrial productivity) that can result in secondary or indirect societal impacts, such as the loss of electricity service, industrial cooling capacity others (Sugg et al ., 2020). These impacts are only expected to worsen as populations in water‐limited environments continue to grow and the demand for water from energy, industry, and agriculture (i.e., irrigation) increases (Mishra and Singh, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Characterizing U.S. drought over the past 20 years using the U.S. drought monitor

Leeper

Bilotta²,

Petersen

et al. 2022

Intl Journal of Climatology

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The main challenge of evaluating droughts in the context of climate change and linking these droughts to adverse societal outcomes is a lack of a uniform definition that identifies drought conditions at a location and time. The U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM), created in 1999, is a well-established composite index that combines drought indicators across the hydrological cycle (i.e., meteorological to hydrological) with information from local experts. This makes the USDM one of the most holistic measures for evaluating past drought conditions across the United States. In this study, the USDM was used to define drought events as consecutive periods in time where the USDM status met or exceeded D1 conditions over the past 20 years. This analysis was applied to 5 km grid cells covering the U.S. and Puerto Rico to characterize the frequency, duration, and intensification rates of drought, and the timing of onset, amelioration, and other measures for every drought event on record. Results from this analysis revealed stark contrasts in the evolution of drought across the United States. Over the western United States, droughts evolved much slower, resulting in longer-lasting but fewer droughts. The eastern United States experienced more frequent, shorter-duration events. Given the slower evolution from onset to drought peak, flash droughts, which made up 9.8% of all droughts, were less common across the western United States, with a greater frequency over the southern United States. The most severe drought event on record was the 2012 drought, when more than 21% of the United States experienced its largest number of weeks at or above extreme (D3) drought conditions. The availability of historical drought events would support future societal impacts studies relating drought to adverse outcomes and aid in the evaluation of mitigation strategies by providing a dataset to local decision makers to compare and evaluate past droughts.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterizing U.S. drought over the past 20 years using the U.S. drought monitor

Leeper

Bilotta²,

Petersen

et al. 2022

Intl Journal of Climatology

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“…Despite the use of less than 20% of their available water resources every year, freshwater resources and potential vulnerability to water shortages are non-uniformly distributed throughout the continent (Rosegrant and Cai, 2002). Such shortages will act as a vulnerability multiplier leading to socioeconomic and physical health deterioration in groups such as migrants, poor families in urban areas, and farmers (Sugg et al, 2020). The Canadian Prairies are known to have been vulnerable to historical hydrologic droughts, although few assessments of drought risk across Canada have been made to date (MacDonald et al, 2008;Bonsal et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of Future Risks of Seasonal Municipal Water Shortages Across North America

2021

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While anthropogenic climate change poses a risk to freshwater resources across the globe through increases in evapotranspiration and temperature, it is essential to quantify the risks at local scales in response to projected trends in both freshwater supply and demand. In this study, we use empirical modeling to estimate the risks of municipal water shortages across North America by assessing the effects of climate change on streamflow and urban water demand. In addition, we aim to quantify uncertainties in both supply and demand predictions. Using streamflow data from both the US and Canada, we first cluster 4,290 streamflow gauges based on hydrograph similarity and geographical location. We develop a set of multiple linear regression (MLR) models, as a simplified analog to a distributed hydrological model, with minimum input data requirements. These MLR models are calibrated to simulate streamflow for the 1993–2012 period using the ERA5 climate reanalysis data. The models are then used to predict streamflow for the 2080–2099 period in response to two climate scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) from five global climate models. Another set of MLR models are constructed to project seasonal changes in municipal water consumption for the clustered domains. The models are calibrated against collected data on urban water use from 47 cities across the study region. For both streamflow and water use, we quantified uncertainties in our predictions using stochastic weather generators and Monte Carlo methods. Our study shows the strong predictive power of the MLR models for simulating both streamflow regimes (Kling-Gupta efficiency >0.5) and urban water use (correlation coefficient ≈0.7) in most regions. Under the RCP4.5 (RCP8.5) emissions scenario, the West Coast, the Southwest, and the Deep South (South-Central US and the Deep South) have the highest risk of municipal water shortages. Across the whole domain, the risk is the highest in the summer season when demand is high. We find that the uncertainty in projected changes to the water demand is substantially lower than the uncertainty in the projected changes to the supply. Regions with the highest risk of water shortages should begin to investigate mitigation and adaptation strategies.

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“…Extreme temperatures exacerbate drought, leading to dehydration [37] and disturbances to agricultural practices, with downstream impacts on food security and nutrition [11,25]. The limited availability of clean drinking water contributes to outbreaks of diseases, such as cholera and other diarrheal illnesses [37], as well as conditions related to poor personal hygiene [13]. In some cases, dry conditions can favour mosquito-borne diseases [9].…”

Section: Introduction: the Climate Crisis And Human Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%