What Are Droughts And What Are The Causes Of Drought?

A drought is a prolonged period of little or no rain. There is excessive evaporation, great heat and low humidity. The air is dry and the environment is not conducive to survival of plants and animals. There are two kinds of drought; seasonal drought and prolonged drought. Seasonal drought usually occurs in the dry season after the duration of a wet season. In the Savanna along rainy season is followed by a period of dry season where there is no rain. Droughts are common then. Animals migrate towards regions where there is rain to avoid the drought and prolonged drought takes place in deserts and semi-deserts where no rain falls for many years. In the town of Africa in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, the drought has persisted for many years. The area has had no rain for a continuous period of 17 years.

Cause of droughts; in the tropical and continental areas of temperate latitudes, most of the rain is brought by convectional currents. If there is insufficient moisture in the atmosphere to induce the formation of rain clouds for condensation to take place, no rain falls. When this period of absence of rain is prolonged, drought occurs. The Sahel region of the African Sahara is the most drought-prone region in the world. It recorded six disastrous droughts in 1970 to 1980 period.