Flash-droughts: a growing problem

Flash-floods have devastated communities in recent months, but now another phenomenon is causing issues, flash-droughts.

An international research project led by the University of Texas at Austin has examined the trend using new technologies finally capable of tracking short-term changes in soil conditions.

Flash-droughts are a sudden and rapid drying of soil over days or weeks driven by not only a lack of precipitation but also abnormally high temperatures, winds, and sunshine that triggers extreme evaporation at the surface.

Due to their fast pace and unexpected nature, they can kill farmland and result in a lack of water in areas not prepared for it.

Rising global temperatures are now increasing the rate of these droughts with flash-droughts drying land within five days increasing between 3% and 19% in regions around the world in the past two decades.

Central North America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia are particularly prone to these droughts and have seen increases between 22% and 59%.

Before now, a lack of technology to track drying soil in near-real time resulted in this trend being missed.

With this research we now know that 34% to 46% of flash-droughts took hold in five days with more than 70% arriving in half a month or less.

Despite being short lived, flash-droughts are estimated to have resulted in $35.7 billion in losses in 2012.