The parched lips of the village women in Tanzania slanted downwards as they looked upon the dry earth, buckets upon their heads in dimming hope of finding water, even though it was inevitable they would find none. Tanzania has many river basins play a crucial role in providing water for communities, but because of severe droughts the government is at loss on ways to feed their people. In Tanzania, people are suffering from a severe drought that is affecting their income, safety, environment and for some their livelihood. (Makoye, 2014.) The ACT Tanzania forum was created in 2005, and has since provided drought response and aid to thousands. The ACT Tanzania forum will provide food staples to 10,000 households this year and 2,500 drought resistant seeds to farmers. (Act Alliance, Tanzania.)Tanzania hosts a large rural population of over 33 million, (Trading Economics,2014) many of whom rely off the land and precipitation to fish and harvest crops and livestock for a living who have been put out of work since the drought and have relocated elsewhere,creating a rise in urbanization.
While drought may just seem like a passing weather pattern, drought has serious negative effects on an environment such as hunger and starvation, sickness, wildfires, conflict and death. When drought happens, there often is not enough water for crops and pastures that affects livestock and harvest season because crops often die out which can lead to famine. If a drought is severe enough people will go to desperate measures to get water which may not be clean which can lead to sickness and even disease. It is hard to receive appropriate care because of the amount of poverty in Tanzania. When there is not enough water, plants and brush become very dry which becomes a serious fire hazard and if a fire were to occur the lack of water would just magnify the fire making this a very dangerous issue. The media also states that conflict between herders and farmers over shrinking water supplies and pasture space is increasing. Drought is a very sad prevalent issue because humans can not survive for many days without water so many are in great risk of death from thirst or diseases derived from unsanitary. (National Drought Mitigation Center, 2014)
Tanzania has suffered on and off from steadily intensifying droughts, that have seen spikes in 1999, 2003, 2005, 2011 and now things are at a record low and millions are in need. In 1999, countries like Ireland spent over 7 million dollars to develop programs in Tanzania for aid for extreme weather. (Irish Department of Foriegn Affairs, 2014.)Currently scientists are pushing for drought resistant genetically modified crops some feel are the cure to the overwhelming starvation because of crop failure due to drought.
Tanzania has 8 major water basins with surrounding fertile land that are good for crops and fishing when precipitation levels are high but in recent years have been barren with water levels extremely low and very little water filtering through any of the major rivers down from Lake Victoria. (United Republic of Tanzania aqua stat, 2014)
Global warming is a trend that has appeared several times over the course of Earth's 4.6 billion year history, but there is staggering evidence to prove that currently earth is on the greatest warming trend known to humanity. Due to this evidence it is hard to say if Tanzania will ever return to its old standards on water levels or if climate change and global warming will continue to make daily life in Tanzania a very difficult thing. With the current evidence scientists have provided it is highly likely that the droughts in Tanzania will only get worse.
Bone Dry
By: Lauren Raith
Drought in Tanzania un-covers a plethora of problems:
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