Drought

In most arid regions of the world the rains are very unpredictable.This leads to peropds when there is a serious scarity of water to drink,use in farms or provide for urban and industrial use,Drought-prone areas are thus faced with irregural periods of famine.Agriculture have no income in these bad years ,and as they have no steady income ,they have a constant fear of droughts .India has 'Drought-prone Areas Development progrms'which are used in suchareas to buffer the effects of droughts.Under these schemes, people are given wages in bad years to build roads,monor irrigation works and plantation programs.

Drought has been a major problem in our couintry,especially in arid and semi-arid regions.It is an unpredictable climatic condition and occurs due to the failure of one or more monsoons.It varies in frequency in diifent parts of our country.

while it is not feasible to prevent the failure of the monsoon .good environmental management can reduce its ill-effects.The scarcity of water during drought years affects homes agriculture and industry.It also leads to storagees and manitrution which especially affects children .

several measures can be taken to minimize the serious impacts of drought .However,this must be done as a preventive measure,so that if the monsoon fails its impact on local peoples lives is reduced.In years when the monsoon is adequate,we use up the good supply of water without trying to conserve it and use the water judiciously.Thus during a year whn the rains are poor,there is no water even for drinking in the drought area.

One factor that aggravates the effect of drought is deforstation.Once the hill-slopes are denuded of forest cover the rainwater rushes down the rivers and is lost.Forest cover permits water to be held in the area and gradually seep in to the ground.THis chargers the underground stores have been filled during a good monsoon .If water from the underground stores is overused,the water table drops and vegitation suffers.This soil and water management and afforestation are long-term measurs that reduce the impact of droughts.