A drought is a long period of time with very little rain or snow in a particular area. It can last for months, years, or even decades. When rain stops falling the way it normally does, the soil dries out, lakes and rivers shrink, and plants, animals, and people all start to feel the effects.
If you’re a parent or teacher looking for a clear way to explain drought to kids, or a young reader trying to understand it yourself, here’s everything you need to know.
Why Droughts Happen
Every region on Earth has a normal amount of rain or snow it usually gets each year. A drought starts when that area receives much less rain than usual for a long stretch of time. Without regular rainfall, the ground dries out and water sources like rivers, lakes, and underground wells start to drop.
Really hot temperatures make droughts worse. When it’s extra hot outside, moisture evaporates from the soil faster, drying things out even more quickly. So a drought isn’t just about missing rain. It’s a combination of too little water coming in and too much water disappearing into the air.
Four Ways Droughts Show Up
Scientists talk about drought in four different categories, depending on what’s being affected:
- Weather drought: This is the starting point. Dry weather patterns take over an area and rain simply stops showing up the way it normally does.
- Farming drought: When the dry conditions last long enough, crops start to suffer. Plants can’t get the water they need from the soil, so they wilt, stop growing, or die.
- Water supply drought: Rivers, lakes, and reservoirs drop to low levels. Wells that pull water from underground may start to run dry. This is when communities begin to notice water shortages.
- Economic drought: When the water shortage gets bad enough to affect the things people buy and sell, like food, electricity from dams, or products that need water to manufacture, the drought is hitting the economy.
These four types often happen in order, like dominoes. It starts with less rain, then farms struggle, then water supplies drop, and eventually the whole community feels the squeeze.
What Drought Does to Nature
The ground beneath your feet is full of life, even if you can’t see it. Tiny organisms in the soil help break down leaves and dead plants, turning them into nutrients that living plants need to grow. When the soil dries out during a drought, these organisms slow way down. Some go into a kind of sleep mode, waiting for water to return. That means the soil becomes less healthy, and plants have an even harder time getting the food they need from the ground.
Animals feel the effects too. With less water in streams and ponds, fish and frogs lose their habitat. Land animals may have to travel farther to find drinking water. Birds and other wildlife that depend on certain plants for food may need to move to new areas entirely. Wildfires also become much more likely during droughts because dried-out grass, brush, and trees catch fire easily.
What Drought Means for People
The biggest way drought hits people is through food and water. Farms need enormous amounts of water to grow crops and raise animals. When a drought dries up that water, crop harvests shrink and farmers sometimes have to sell off their livestock because there isn’t enough water or food to keep them healthy. Those losses get passed along to everyone in the form of higher food prices at the grocery store.
The numbers can be staggering. In 2012, severe drought hit 80 percent of farmland in the United States, and more than two-thirds of U.S. counties were declared disaster areas. That single drought caused $14.5 billion in crop insurance payments. In 2015, drought in California alone resulted in $1.84 billion in direct costs and the loss of more than 10,000 seasonal farm jobs.
Drinking water can also become harder to get. Cities and towns that rely on rivers, lakes, or reservoirs may have to ask residents to use less water. In extreme cases, water has to be trucked in from somewhere else.
The Dust Bowl: A Famous Drought
One of the most dramatic droughts in history happened in the United States during the 1930s, in an event known as the Dust Bowl. The south-central part of the country got so dry that the soil literally turned to dust and blew away in massive storms that darkened the sky. A newspaper reporter named Robert Geiger coined the term “Dust Bowl” in 1935 after witnessing the destruction.
The Dust Bowl wasn’t one single drought. It was actually at least four separate dry periods between 1930 and 1940. The damage was devastating. Nearly 1 in 10 farms changed hands during the worst years, and many of those sales were forced. By 1936, more than one in five rural families in the Great Plains were receiving emergency help from the government, and in the hardest-hit counties, that number reached 90 percent. Millions of people packed up and moved west, searching for work and a fresh start. Government aid during this period may have reached $1 billion, an enormous sum for the 1930s.
How Kids Can Help Save Water
You don’t have to be a scientist or a farmer to make a difference during dry conditions. Small changes at home add up to a lot of saved water, especially when everyone pitches in.
One of the easiest things to do is turn off the faucet while brushing your teeth. Just doing this in the morning and at bedtime can save 4 to 8 gallons of water every day. The same goes for washing dishes: turn off the tap while you scrub and only turn it back on to rinse.
Showers are another easy win. Keeping your shower under five minutes saves a surprising amount of water. Try timing yourself with a clock or your favorite song. If you help with yard work, watering the lawn first thing in the morning (instead of in the heat of the afternoon) means less water evaporates before it soaks into the ground. And when it’s time to wash a car or bike, grab a bucket and sponge instead of leaving a hose running.
These might sound like small steps, but water saved at millions of homes across a region can make a real difference in how well a community weathers a drought.