What are the negative effects of drought?
Drought can limit the growing season and create conditions that encourage insect and disease infestation in certain crops. Low crop yields can result in rising food prices and shortages, potentially leading to malnutrition. Drought can also affect the health of livestock raised for food. Drought can also create significant economic and social problems. The lack of rain can result in crop loss, a decrease in land prices, and unemployment due to declines in production. As water levels in rivers and lakes fall, water-supply problems can develop. These can bring about other social problems.The environmental consequences of drought include losses in plant growth; increases in fire and insect outbreaks; altered rates of carbon, nutrient, and water cycling; and local species extinctions. Drought can impact natural ecosystems and the services they provide to human communities.Under drought stress conditions, many metabolic processes, including photosynthesis, are negatively affected. For instance, water deficiency damages basic organization structure, which inhibits carbon assimilation and damages photosynthetic apparatus (Ali and Ashraf, 2011; Golldack et al.The Short Answer A drought is caused by drier than normal conditions that can eventually lead to water supply problems. Really hot temperatures can make a drought worse by evaporating moisture from the soil.
What is the main effect of drought?
Drought can lead to decreased water quantity and quality, increased incidence of illness or disease, increased mortality rates, and adverse mental health outcomes as livelihoods are challenged. Drought can result in reduced growth rates, increased stress on vegetation, and alterations or transformations to the plant community and/or the entire ecosystem. During periods of drought, plants increase their demand for water through increased evapotranspiration and longer growing seasons.Depending upon how severe the conditions get and how long they last, drought can devastate crops, dry out forests, reduce food and water available for wildlife and livestock, restrict recreational activities, and stress businesses and economies.Drought has both short term and long term effects on plants: Leaves may curl and look scorched. Eventually plants will begin to show signs of decline as tips of branches become dry and brown. New growth will be stunted. When damage is severe, no amount of watering can undo it.Drought makes it difficult to get food, crops, fresh water and natural resources such as firewood off the land. In addition, rainfall shortage causes crop failure. Water flows away and takes the top layer of fertile soil with it, also known as erosion.
What are the effects of drought stress on plants?
Typical drought stress symptoms in plants include leaf rolling, stunning plants, yellowing leaves, leaf scorching, permanent wilting [55]. The initial signs of drought stress in plants include wilting, leaf curling, and slowed growth rates. These symptoms are plants’ first line of defence, reducing water loss by minimising surface area exposed to the sun and air.Both salt and drought stress cause osmotic stress, which involves the regulation of a wide range of inorganic and organic metabolites and results in damage to plants, including ion toxicity, reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation, plasma membrane disruption, and cell wall damage [6].Drought is a prolonged dry period in the natural climate cycle that can occur anywhere in the world. It is a slow-onset disaster characterized by the lack of precipitation, resulting in a water shortage. Drought can have a serious impact on health, agriculture, economies, energy and the environment.Besides reducing growth, symptoms can include marginal leaf scorch, wilting, tip dieback, premature leaf drop, chlorosis, and, if severe enough, plant death. Plants that are subjected to water stress drastically decrease their resistance to opportunistic pathogens, such as Cytospora.
What would happen to plants if there was a drought?
Lack of water alone will affect photosynthesis, reducing carbohydrate production, thus reducing and somewhat stunting growth. High temperatures added to the drought multiply the stress on plants and will stunt growth and produce smaller fruits, leading to compromised quality and reduction in overall yield. Drought stress also alters plant physiological traits such as stomatal functioning, photosynthesis, gaseous exchange, antioxidant system, transpiration rate all of which leads to growth retardation (Raza et al.Drought can lead to decreased water quantity and quality, increased incidence of illness or disease, increased mortality rates, and adverse mental health outcomes as livelihoods are challenged. During drought conditions, fuels for wildfire, such as grasses and trees, can dry out and become more flammable.Drought can develop quickly and last only for a matter of weeks, exacerbated by extreme heat and/or wind, but more commonly drought can persist for months or years.
What is the impact of drought on soil?
Impact of drought on soil properties The activity of bacterial and fungal communities in soil is generally negatively impacted by dry conditions and this may lead to some loss of soil structure, potentially affecting infiltration rates of precipitation. The first evidence of drought is usually seen in records of rainfall. Within a short period of time, the amount of moisture in soils can begin to decrease. The effects of a drought on flow in streams and reservoirs may not be noticed for several weeks or months.Impact of drought on soil properties The activity of bacterial and fungal communities in soil is generally negatively impacted by dry conditions and this may lead to some loss of soil structure, potentially affecting infiltration rates of precipitation.