Using climate information for drought planning

Recent drought events around the world have demonstrated that droughts are normal, yet costly, natural disasters in most climates. Examples include the California drought in the United States of America, which cost a roughly estimated US$5 billion in agricultural impacts over consecutive years in 2014 to 2015, and illustrates the potentially huge economic impacts resulting from droughts in the developed world In Brazil, a recent multiple-year drought threatened water supplies for the residents of Sao Paulo, the ninth-largest metropolitan area in the world and the largest in South America. The 2011 drought across the Greater Horn of Africa region confirmed that droughts can cause famines and human mortality. Meanwhile, the 2006 to 2011 drought in the Middle East is indirectly linked to the recent disruptions and chaos across northern Africa and the Middle East, contributing to the current unrest in Syria and the migration crisis facing the European continent (Gleick 2014).