LACK OF RAIN

DRIES UP CAPE TOWN, CHENNAI, KABUL

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Hotspots of water scarcity could emerge by the 2020s and 2030s across the Mediterranean, southern Africa, and North America, as climate change intensifies droughts, a new study said Tuesday.

Scientists have established that climate change is making droughts longer, stronger and more frequent, but less well understood is when and where these extreme dry conditions could trigger acute shortages of drinking water. South Africa’s Cape Town faced the threat of a “Day Zero Drought”, where the taps nearly ran dry for millions of people in 2018. India’s Chennai faced a similar crisis the following year. In new peer-reviewed research in the journal Nature Communications, researchers warned that the frequency of “Day Zero” episodes could increase much sooner than previously anticipated. To study how global warming might impact these events in future, researchers used the latest climate models to estimate when water demands would exceed supply from rainfall, rivers and reservoirs.