Tag - drought

 
 

DROUGHT

Farmers clean vegetables in South Omdurman, Sudan, on May, 21.
WORLD
May 26, 2026
Iran war poses new threat to harvests in hunger-stricken Sudan
Sudan is particularly vulnerable to the fallout from the Iran crisis as it relies on the Persian Gulf for more than half of its fertilizer needs, according to U.N. ‌data.
An uncovered sandbar due to low water levels of the Mississippi River in Greenville, Mississippi, in 2022
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
May 14, 2026
Why more intense bursts of rain are making the planet drier
Intense, concentrated rainstorms have been on the rise for decades. And those bigger storms turn out to have a counterintuitive effect.
Water buffaloes wade through the Chibayish marshes in Iraq on Thursday.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
May 8, 2026
Iraq’s historic marshes revive as water returns after years of drought
Rising water levels are beginning to revive the country’s wetlands, drawing buffalo herders and fishermen back to areas once abandoned.
A family walks across a dried up fishery south of Manila in 2015, where the El Nino weather phenomenon ravaged farmlands and damaged crops.
ASIA PACIFIC
May 5, 2026
‘Super El Nino’ raises fears for Asia reeling from Middle East conflict
The continent is now facing the prospect of strong climate conditions that could spike energy demand, sap hydropower and damage crops.
A North Korean village in 2016. Elizabeth Salmon, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, said in February that food shortages are already a key concern in the isolated country.
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 30, 2026
North Korea faces ‘severe’ drought, according to state media
Natural disasters such as drought tend to have an outsized impact on the isolated country because of its weak infrastructure and economy.
A cloud-seeding generator outside the town of Fraser, Colorado, produces snow for the Winter Park ski resort, several miles downwind.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Feb 2, 2026
U.S. ski resorts turn to drones to make it snow amid dire drought
Resorts are increasingly seeking solutions to freshen up the brown slopes spanning the American West this winter, even as the East Coast grapples with back-to-back storms.
Iranian women perform a prayer for rainfall at the Saleh Shrine in Tehran on Nov. 14. The country is suffering from severe water shortages.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2025
When communism is the only option
Iran’s flailing response to a nationally destabilizing water crisis should be a warning to everyone.
People pray for rain following a drought crisis at Imamzadeh Saleh shrine in Tehran on Friday.
WORLD
Nov 16, 2025
Iran begins cloud seeding operations as severe drought bites
Rainfall in the capital Tehran has been at its lowest level in a century, according to officials, and half of Iran’s provinces have not seen a drop of rain in months.
Workers at a site of a new Amazon data center that is under construction in western Sydney, Australia, on Sept. 5
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 16, 2025
In Australia, a data center boom is built on vague water plans
Concerns have emerged that the sector’s rapid growth will leave residents competing for the resource.
The Sau Reservoir in Vilanova de Sau in Catalonia, an area of Spain that has been suffering from drought, on Aug. 25
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Sep 9, 2025
Drought hit over half of Europe in mid-August, EU data shows
More than three quarters of Portugal was affected by drought, with the country also experiencing devastating wildfires.
NASA says its satellite imagery shows the Earth is becoming drier — at least the parts where most people live.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 7, 2025
The Earth is drying out and we need to act urgently
Measurements from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites suggest the continents have been losing fresh water at an alarming rate since 2002.
A Kurdish member of the Dohuk Antiquities Department works on a grave unearthed along the banks of Mosul Dam on an archaeological site in the Khanke sub-district of Dohuk Governorate on Saturday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Aug 31, 2025
Ancient tombs unearthed in Iraq due to drought
The tombs, believed to be over 2,300 years old, were unearthed at the edges of the Mosul Dam reservoir in the Khanke region of Iraq’s Duhok province.
Haji Karam Jat (right), a fisherman, and his family members walk along an embankment in Keti Bandar town of Thatta district near the Indus delta, in the south of Pakistan on June 25.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Aug 7, 2025
Death of a delta: Pakistan’s Indus sinks and shrinks
More than 1.2 million people have been displaced from the region in the last two decades as the downstream flow of water into the delta has fallen 80% since the 1950s.
Women and children arrange their containers as they line up at a standpipe, where incomplete water connections caused by USAID funding cuts to the NGO Mercy Corps have led to ongoing water shortages, in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, on June 16.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Jul 20, 2025
Trump’s funding cut stalls water projects, increasing risks for millions
The White House’s decision to slash nearly all U.S. foreign aid projects has created new hazards for some of the people they were designed to benefit.
Afghans carry water canisters on the outskirts of Kabul on April 27.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
May 22, 2025
‘Serious problem’: Afghan capital losing race against water shortages
Kabul’s crisis, driven by unruly and rapid urbanization, mismanagement over years of conflict, and climate change, forces residents to choose between food and water.
The Laguna Grande restoration project at Valle de Mexicali, Baja California state, Mexico
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Apr 10, 2025
Once-dying Mexican river delta slowly nursed back to life by conservationists
In drought-hit Mexico, conservationists are reviving the Colorado River Delta, restoring wetlands and drawing back wildlife once lost.
Midwife Tabita dos Santos Moraes prepares cassava flour in Tefe in Brazil's Amazonas state last October. Tabita's great-grandmother taught midwifery to her aunts, who taught her mother, who taught her, starting at the age of 15.
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 21, 2025
In the remote Amazon, midwives care for women stranded by drought
Years of extreme droughts in the Amazon rainforest have made river journeys to and from remote communities perilous.
A flooded road in the Philippines following heavy rain in July 2024
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 19, 2025
Extreme weather in 2024 forced most people to flee in 16 years
The climate damages also exacerbated a food crisis in more than a dozen countries, according to a report.
Excavators to be used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to remove debris from homes destroyed by the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / FOCUS
Mar 10, 2025
Cascading extreme weather events unleash billions in damages globally
Compound weather, when two or more concurrent events that collectively yield a result worse than if each had occurred on its own, are occurring more frequently.
Ground Self-Defense Force helicopters return after dropping water as they fight a wildfire around Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, on Sunday. Firefighters were still battling Japan's biggest forest fire in half a century on Tuesday.
JAPAN
Mar 4, 2025
Japan’s worst wildfire in half a century spreads
White smoke billowed from a forested area around the city of Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, six days after the blaze began amid record low rainfall.

Longform

The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival