Saudi Arabia – Sustainable Solutions for making the desert bloom / Droughts in the Anthropocene

In recent years, there has been growing awareness regarding the unsustainable use of water driving the agricultural expansion in Saudi Arabia. Although the country has a permanently dry landscape, its problems are similar to those that occur during a drought. Precision agriculture is one solution being developed on the ground in Saudi Arabia.

Drought is a natural hazard that occurs without warning; it can persist for many years and extend across large areas all around the world. The impacts of drought are multiple and affect the economy as well as the function of ecosystems and societies. Each year, water-related disasters, such as drought and flooding, affect approximately 160 million people, killing about 13,500 persons. Economic damages caused by drought are annually around USD 5,4 billion.

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 Hydrological Programme (IHP) in partnership with GRID-Arendal, the University of Southampton and the U.S. National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS).