#drought

#drought

It was dark and smelled of rotten leaves. As I shook the tube, I tried to keep the muck from getting on my shoes. There must have been three or four gallons of it. Contorted in an uncomfortable crouch and harassed by bugs as the water glugged slowly out of the little hole, I felt impatient. I was ready to share my grubby prize with my friends, but the hole was so small and I was still far from the road.

Why has the price gone up? It's the law of supply and demand. America's beef cattle herd is the smallest in 75 years, in part because of drought. But Americans' love of hamburgers and steaks has kept demand strong until recently. In July, the U.S. Department of Agriculture continued to record a shrinking number of U.S. cattle and calves, forecasting that beef production would decline 4% over this year and another 2% in 2026.

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Scientists are seeing "mega-drying" regions that are immense and expanding - one stretching from the western United States through Mexico to Central America, and another from Morocco to France, across the entire Middle East to northern China. There are two primary causes of the desiccation: rising temperatures unleashed by using oil and gas, and widespread overpumping of water that took millennia to accumulate underground.

Rising pressure on local water infrastructure, with prolonged drought, declining inflows and rapid population growth were the focus of a recent Urban Land Institute Austin panel. Speakers called attention to ongoing water policy shortfalls at the state and local levels and warned that continued development could outpace available supply unless legislative and planning reforms are adopted.

The newly discovered tombs are believed to date back to the Hellenistic or Hellenistic-Seleucid period. Archaeologists in drought-hit Iraq have discovered 40 ancient tombs after water levels in the country's largest reservoir declined, according to an antiquities official. The tombs, believed to be more than 2,300 years old, were unearthed at the edges of the Mosul Dam reservoir in the Khanke region of Duhok province in the country's north.

Researchers have now discovered that between 870 and 1100 CE, there were eight extreme drought events on the Yucatan Peninsula, one of the core areas of Mayan civilization.

South Florida is currently under a heat advisory due to feels-like temperatures exceeding 100 degrees, with peak heat index values expected to reach 105 to 110 degrees.

The first hosepipe ban of 2025 has been announced in the UK, following the country’s driest spring in over a century, with only 15cm of rainfall recorded.

Low water levels after heatwaves and drought are limiting shipping on some of Europe's biggest rivers, including the Rhine and the Danube, and pushing up transport costs.

Millions of Yorkshire households are facing a potential hosepipe ban in two weeks time to cope with the county's drought. Internal Yorkshire Water documents suggest a temporary ban for its five million customers has been pencilled in for July 14.

A sign reads, "Sorry we are closed due to the very low water" outside a business along the drought-stricken Elephant Butte Reservoir on August 16, 2022.

Magdalena Martinez expresses the distress of her community as a proposed dam threatens their homes, emphasizing the local opposition to the sacrifice for global shipping.