Water scarcity in the Caribbean islands is an increasing problem, growing with the expansion of the tourism industry, population growth, urbanization and ineffective water management and strategies. During the 2009-2010 drought, several important capacity issues were uncovered, including limits in early warning systems, inadequate policies and plans and limited finances to implement and sustain key activities. Since then, significant progress has been made in monitoring, forecasting and mitigation, thanks in part to the Latin American and Caribbean Drought Atlas produced by UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme (IHP).
Though droughts are natural events, there is an increasing understanding of how humans have amplified their severity and worsened their effects on both the environment and human populations. Humans have altered both meteorological droughts through human-induced climate change and hydrological droughts through management of water movement and processes within a landscape, such as by diverting rivers or changing land use. In the Anthropocene (the ongoing period in which humans are the dominant influence on climate and the environment), droughts are closely entwined with human actions, cultures and responses.
This series of videos explains the effects of drought all around the world through the presentation of case studies.
They are the result of the work of UNESCO’s International Hydrologica Programme (IHP) in partnership with GRID-Arendal, the University of Southampton and the U.S. National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS).
