This needs to change.
Between 2015 and 2017 South Africa’s South Western Cape region experienced three of its lowest rainfall years on record.
And many water resource planners are taking climate change into account when upgrading existing or designing new water supply systems.
But has this changing global climate already altered the risk of droughts like the one Cape Town just experienced?
Using a range of modelling approaches, we first estimated the frequency and intensity of three-year rainfall amounts over the South Western Cape in a world without human-induced warming of the climate.
This means that the key assumption of a stable climate, which underpins the design of the water supply system, has been undermined by climate change, at least for the South Western Cape region.
Our analysis shows that what has been predicted to happen in Southern Africa under changing climate in the future is already happening, with more dry periods today than, say, 20 or 50 years ago.
In addition to assessing current risk, our analysis also showed that with a further doubling of global warming over today from 1.0 to 2.0 degrees – likely to happen sometime in the next 50 years – there is a further threefold increase in risk of severe drought.
This means that droughts which the current water resource system is designed to survive will occur much more frequently.
Climate change projections are often taken into account when designing future water supply systems and other infrastructure.

One of its prime sources of water is the Rio Grande.
But climate change is making that increasingly difficult and is pushing the city to look for new sources of water.
Increasing temperatures will make the dry region even more vulnerable to drought, according to the federal government’s most recent national climate assessment.
The district manages the water distribution of some 90,000 acres of farmland along the Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico and Texas.
Since 1958, the amount of early April snowmelt going into the Rio Grande has dropped 25% due to less snowpack and evaporation.
Drought isn’t anything new for the 1,800-mile long river.
It has a capacity of about 2 million acre feet, King said.
For those who rely on the river, like the city of El Paso, they must look for alternative water sources out of necessity.
It is something that El Paso is used to.
That’s more than 20,000 times the amount of water El Paso used this year.

How do we know what past megadroughts were like?
Trees grow annual tree rings every year.
How do tree rings help compare past megadroughts to drought today?
So we took advantage of this really high density of drought-sensitive tree ring records to reconstruct how soil moisture has varied over the last 1,200 years.
In 2012 I did a study using tree records across the Southwest.
And that’s what we’ve seen in western North America, where the last century … has not seen really big trends in precipitation.
And climate models say that all of that warming is due to human-caused climate change.
We can retroactively calculate how soil moisture would have been impacted if the long-term warming trends that were caused by humans had never occurred.
It would still have been bad; it would compete with the worst droughts of the last century.
But it wouldn’t be able to compete with the droughts of the last millennium [without climate change].

GUNNISON COUNTY — The cold is just the cold.
That’s nothing, says Sunderlin, 78.
But Robbins and Sunderlin, they only find harsh reminders.
The song they sang: "We’re in our places with sun-shining faces …" And, oh yes, the cold.
"If you’re older than 65, and you’re local, you remember it," Primus says.
"Not that many in the big picture," Primus says.
It wasn’t only fishing that put Iola on the map.
"That summer, we went ahead and put the hay up, baled it and sold it all.
The year before, this was still the home ranch."
The thought lingers for a moment, silence but for the cold wind.

NOT-for-profit organisations are providing support to people across parts of drought-hit Australia.
The Salvation Army, St Vincent de Paul Society and Rotary Australia World Community Service are now providing financial support from the Liberal and Nationals Government’s $30 million Drought Community Support Initiative.
Minister for Regional Services and Nationals Senator for Victoria, Bridget McKenzie, said delivering support in time for Christmas was a top priority.
"I am pleased to confirm the $30 million Drought Community Support Initiative is up and running,” Minister McKenzie said.
"It will provide immediate assistance to at least 10,000 farming households facing hardship because of the drought.
"Practical support of up to $3000 per household, including up to $2000 to help pay the bills and $1000 in vouchers, will be welcome relief this Christmas.
"Hopefully it can bring some cheer to the thousands of eligible farmers, farm workers or farm suppliers and contractors who are struggling to pay everyday bills, including basics such as food, petrol and utilities.” Christmas is supposed to be a time for family and sharing but this can also put extra pressure on those doing it tough during the drought.
The Minister urged people to look out for each other this holiday season and seek support if they, or someone they care about, might need help.
Minister McKenzie said there were many ways to get help, and in many instances it could happen from the privacy of your own home.
For help and more information visit: The Salvation Army: 24 hour assistance line: 02 8757 8088 St Vincent de Paul: Assistance Line: 13 18 12 Rotary Australia World Community Service: Government drought support: Region-based mental health services: For immediate mental health support, you can contact: Lifeline on 13 11 14 Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800 MensLine Australia on 1300 789 978 Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467.

Afghans are facing water shortages due to the persistent drought that has ravaged the country this year.
In many places, including the capital Kabul, local residents have to carry containers to fill at water points several times a day.
In the past year, the amount of precipitation dropped by more than 50 percent compared with that of average levels in most parts of Afghanistan.
This year is even worse.
La Nina has had a devastating effect on the planting season, with a rain, snow and sleet deficit of 70 percent prevailing across most of the country.
In the 20 provinces most affected by the drought, nearly 15 million people rely on farming, livestock or labour opportunities in agriculture.
Of these, an estimated 2 million people will become severely food insecure due to the drought.
According to the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority, about two million Afghans have been affected by the drought.
Years of conflict have damaged the country’s infrastructure, making the situation even worse.
Local media say the drought has caused a fall in crop production in the western and northern parts of Afghanistan, and people in these areas are on the edge of famine.

The beloved peanut usually grows in sandy soil where there might not be much moisture.
Crop scientists are trying to find the peanut varieties best at it.
Thomas Sinclair at North Carolina State University and colleagues are studying peanut varieties to find a ‘water conservation’ trait.
“Crop varieties that have a greater yield than others, with less water, are crucial in maintaining or increasing the profits available to growers,” he explains.
By doing this early in the soil drying cycle, the plant conserves water for later as the drought gets worse.
“Somewhat surprisingly, nearly all plants show a decrease in transpiration with soil drying,” Sinclair says.
This means there is more water available to sustain the crop as the drought goes on.” The researchers set out to find this water conservation trait through three sets of experiments.
“This research was a three-phase study to identify a peanut line that had the potential for increased yields under drought conditions,” Sinclair says.
Sinclair says the next step in this research is exploring another trait, nitrogen fixation.
“I am a crop physiologist who is interested in sorting out how plants grow and develop in the field to generate yield,” he says.

Dhawalpuri (Ahmednagar): A narrow road off the Ahmednagar-Kalyan highway in northern Maharashtra leads to the small village of Dhawalpuri.
Salan Nana Pande (65) lives in one of the semi-pucca houses.
This year, however, has been different.
While onions have sold for rock-bottom prices.
Even the productivity of onions has been impacted by scanty rainfall.
The capacity of the infrastructures, like irrigation canals from these eleven rivers, supports cultivation in 19.64% irrigated area whereas the remaining 80.24% of the area is rain-fed land, according to the Economic Survey of Maharashtra 2017-2018.
Ironically, erratic rainfall in the hilly mountainous region of Thakarwadi has made her children move to the city for better income sources, while their agricultural land remains barren.
She shares,“ The Kharif cultivation of onions in the small plots will fetch us Rs 7 per kg due to the size and quality, whereas the seasonal income from the city is sufficient to run a household of six”.
The farmers have been prey to drought and low pricing of onions.
Minimum support prices are set for pulses, paddy and few other crops that cannot be grown due to drought, leaving the rural people perplexed while selling perishable produce like onions.

BAJURA: Fears of a severe food crisis has added to the woes of locals in several rural municipalities in remote outskirts of Bajura as they battle through the longest drought the region has witnessed in 41 years.
The drought that has lasted for five years now has impelled farmers of four local levels of Bajura, two rural municipalities in Humla and Shreekot in Mugu, to abandon their farms and rely heavily on food imports in subsistence.
“Stock of paddy and barley which we grew during years with good rain used to last for 9 months but now we have not been able to plant or grow anything for lack of irrigation facility and a prolonged drought,” according to Bagh Dal Malla, chair of Tajakot Rural Municipality.
Farmers in Swamikartik, Jagannath, Himali and Budinanda rural municipalities have been hit hard by the drought as their fields, they say, have turned into a desert.
“What were then paddy fields are now empty swathes where nothing has grown for the past five years,” Himali Rural Municipality Chair Gobindra Bahadur Malla said.
In the Wai Village of Malla’s rural municipality, arable land locally called as Wai Jiulo of around 400 households is deserted and men from the village have abandoned the fields and left for India in a desperate search for work following the drought.
“Although Karnali River, one of the major rivers of Nepal flows below us, we highlanders have nothing but only dreams of irrigating our fields with its water,” local Ishwari Giri said.
According to Budinanda Municipality’s Agriculture Department Head Ghamanda Bharati, food production in the region already identified as food crisis prone area has plummeted by whopping margin in the recent years adding up to the woes of locals.
(Translated/Edited by Prahlad Rijal)

Malcolm Donaldson’s Boggabri property has seen few drops of rain and like many others has been handfeeding stock.
He has lopped 600 trees since May, and now only has three weeks of cutting left.
"It is use them or lose them," he said.
"We estimate we have got another two to three weeks of lopping, the window is closing quite quickly now because during December the trees will start dropping their leaf and putting new leaf out."
Many of Mr Donaldson’s neighbours have also undertaken lopping.
Luckily though, the kurrajong leaves have proved a winner with the cattle, being very palatable.
"That said, just getting the physical quantity into cattle is a big thing," Mr Donaldson explained.
"You wake up every morning knowing that sometime during the day you are going to be scared," Mr Donaldson said.
"When I first left school we were using tomahawks and I’ve got a scar on my leg to prove it," Mr Donaldson pointed out.
"My father reckoned it would be common for people to be in the drought hobbling up and down the main street because they all cut themselves with tomahawks."