Drought News

The climate crisis is bringing extreme storms, drought and temperatures to the High Plains, even as U.S. administrations from Clinton to Trump have withdrawn aid to reservations.

Small trees in the shade of the canopy are able to thrive during dry spells in the Brazilian Amazon, but those exposed to the sun in forest clearings suffer.

A recent attempt to induce rain amid a prolonged drought in Sri Lanka has fallen short, but that hasn’t stopped the government from embracing the project, to the dismay of…

On Dec. 17, 2010, a 26-year-old Tunisian fruit vendor named Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest the confiscation of his produce. This act kicked off protests…

The IUCN has identified tree species that are resilient to deepening drought and fires brought on by climate change in Indonesian Borneo. The species will be used for government-backed forest…

Droughts can transform tropical forests. They kill trees and slow their growth. They also affect microbes that are critical to keeping the forest soil healthy. But termites, better known for…

Throughout the spring and summer of 2017, a “flash drought” developed quickly in the Northern Great Plains region of the United States, which encompasses the states of Montana and North…

2018 was a difficult year for the world's tropical rainforests. Below are of some of the biggest rainforest storylines for the year, but we couldn't cover everything, so if there…

The fires closing in on Erika Berenguer’s research site in Brazil’s eastern Amazon were unlike anything she had seen in years working in the forest. Smoke hung heavy the air.…

Mother Nature is the ultimate boss on the prairie — and the boss seems pretty agitated these days. Weather events are more frequent, more extreme, and harder to predict than…

On this episode we welcome the godfather of biodiversity, Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, to discuss some of the most important environmental issues we’re currently facing and why he believes the next…

Because they take vast amounts of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, rainforests are an important part of the planet’s carbon cycle and their conservation is playing front and center…

In many ways, 2018 is the year of the refugee. At U.S. borders, Mediterranean shores and Asian cities, millions are fleeing war, hunger and persecution in search of safety and…

Research published yesterday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution finds that pressures from human activities and climate change caused the African continent to lose as much as 2.6 billion…

Conservationists recently awoke to the extraordinary value of the Cerrado - a biodiverse biome long outshone by the Amazon and a key carbon sink; but agribusiness is fast destroying it.

A 2007 study estimated that with 40% Amazon deforestation a tipping point could be reached, converting forest to savannah. New factors put that tipping point at 20-25%. Deforestation is now at 17%.

KERICHO, Kenya – Less than a decade ago, the hills of Tuiyobei village in Kenya’s Rift Valley were nearly bare, with few trees or shrubs beyond the coffee plantations that…

A plant without water will wither and, eventually, die. This is easy to observe in the browned leaves of a neglected houseplant, but what happens when an entire forest gets…

As the world heads toward more frequent and severe droughts, forests will increasingly suffer from water scarcity. In this scenario, finding ways to predict how trees will respond to water…

When Donald Trump pulled the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP), it dashed plans to increase beef exports to Japan. But trade deals like TTP, which don’t address climate change, remain a looming environmental threat, as does rising global beef consumption.

Tougou village in northern Burkina Faso has a challenging climate for farming. During the dry season, which lasts from November to May, the Harmattan blows — a dry, dusty wind…

ISIMICHINI, Kenya — In the 10 years Arthur Inzofu has been growing oil palm trees at his farm in Isimichini village in western Kenya, he has seen few benefits. But…

If Congress okays Trump’s USAID cuts, Kenyans worry the only wildlife forensics lab in East Africa will close and ranger jobs vanish, threatening the environment.

USAID has improved rural climate change resilience since 2013; now the U.S. may cut that lifeline, with dire results for Zimbabwe’s poorest.

Tropical rainforests have that name for a reason, occurring in high rainfall areas close to the equator with swirling mists shrouding their lofty heights and moist soil that squelches underfoot.…

New research has, for the first time, made use of very high resolution images of Earth’s drylands, revealing that they hold a much larger portion of the world’s forests than…

Every morning, Abdu Hajy, 65, takes his canoe out into the murky waters of the Tana River Delta to fish. He’s been following the same routine, in his hometown of…

Life beneath the waters of the Amazon is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the world’s largest rainforest. All of the bright, primary…

In three short months during monsoon season, India historically receives 75 percent of their annual precipitation. Imagine awaiting this promised, bountiful rainfall and receiving 14 percent less than average. This…

A new study suggests that Colorado River flows have already declined due to rising global temperatures and are likely to experience further declines in the future. Colorado River flows were,…