Drought Research News

March 30, 2025

Top Headlines

Climate Change Fuelling Mental Health Crisis in Areas Most Affected by Climate Crisis

Mar. 18, 2025 — Climate change is not just an environmental issue -- it's a mental health crisis impacting on adolescent wellbeing right now in areas most affected by climate change, according to new ...

How Agave Plants Survive Extreme Droughts

Mar. 5, 2025 — Researchers used terahertz spectroscopy and imaging to gain new insights into how agave plants are so remarkably adept at retaining water in extremely dry ...

Tropical Forests in the Americas Are Struggling to Keep Pace With Climate Change

Mar. 6, 2025 — Tropical rainforests play a vital role in global climate regulation and biodiversity conservation. However, a major new study reveals that forests across the Americas are not adapting quickly enough ...

Climate Change Threatens Future of Banana Export Industry

Mar. 6, 2025 — New research has found it will be economically unsustainable by 2080 for many areas across Latin America and the Caribbean to continue growing bananas for export, because of rising temperatures caused by climate ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:48am EDT

Climate Change Increases the Risk of Tree Mortality in Urban Boreal Forests

Feb. 27, 2025 — Climate change poses a particular risk to pine trees growing in dry areas, a new study conducted in an urban recreational forest in Helsinki ...

Genetic Switch Could Help Control Leaf Growth in Poor Soils

Feb. 27, 2025 — A new study has identified a genetic circuit in plants that controls individual leaf growth and allows the plants to adapt to their environment. The findings could help the development of more ...

Large Differences in Water-Seeking Ability Found in U.S. Corn Varieties

Feb. 6, 2025 — A study has identified key genetic pathways in corn that help its roots branch out to find water in soil; the varieties adapted to temperate regions like the U.S. corn belt showed large differences ...

Climate Warming Leads to More Frequent Beech Tree Reproduction, at the Expense of Growth

Feb. 6, 2025 — A new long-term study reveals alarming insights into the impact of climate change on European beech (Fagus sylvatica), one of Europe's most ...

Study Examines How African Farmers Are Adapting to Mountain Climate Change

Feb. 3, 2025 — A new international study highlights the severity of climate change impacts across African mountains, how farmers are adapting, and the barriers they face -- findings relevant to people living in ...

Research Contrasts Drought Sensitivity of Eurasian and North American Grasslands

Jan. 29, 2025 — Grasslands in Asia and North America differ in their responses to drought, according to a new article. The findings show that differences in the ...

Stronger Stress Response in Monkeys Helps Them Survive

Jan. 23, 2025 — Researchers used the environmental circumstances and fecal samples collected from the six years prior to the severe El Ni o drought in Costa Rica to study the relationship between the endocrinologic ...

Here's What's Causing the Great Salt Lake to Shrink

Jan. 21, 2025 — The Great Salt Lake, the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere, reached historic low levels in 2022, raising economic, ecological and public health concerns for Utah. New research is ...

How Climate Change May Alter Hydrology of Grassland Ecosystems

Jan. 16, 2025 — New research reveals that drought and increased temperatures in a CO2-rich climate can dramatically alter how grasslands use and move water. The study provides the first experimental demonstration of ...

The Megadroughts Are Upon Us

Jan. 16, 2025 — Increasingly common since 1980, persistent multi-year droughts will continue to advance with the warming climate, warns a new study. This publicly available forty-year global quantitative inventory ...

Floods, Droughts, Then Fires: Hydroclimate Whiplash Is Speeding Up Globally

Jan. 9, 2025 — Hydroclimate whiplash -- rapid swings between intensely wet and dangerously dry weather -- has already increased globally due to climate change, with further large increases expected as warming ...

Integrating Historic Data Stands to Improve Climate Models in the Global South

Jan. 7, 2025 — Researchers have devised a way to improve the accuracy of climate change models for the Global South by integrating historical records kept by missionaries and other ...

Climate Extremes in 2024 'Wreaking Havoc' on the Global Water Cycle

Jan. 6, 2025 — 2024 was another year of record-breaking temperatures, driving the global water cycle to new climate extremes and contributing to ferocious floods and crippling droughts, a new report shows. The ...

Researchers Identify a Mysterious Fossil Seed to Reveal New Chapters in Climate History of Los Angeles

Dec. 19, 2024 — Scientists have successfully identified a previously unknown species to Southern California from fossilized seeds, revealing a drought-fueled dance between two species of juniper with lessons for the ...

New Research About Drought Impacts on Wildlife Can Inform Conservation Strategies

Dec. 16, 2024 — New research shows that many wildlife species in the U.S., like the endangered giant kangaroo rat, will face much more frequent and severe droughts in the future. By 2050-2080, year-long droughts ...

Impact Studies Should Include High-Sensitivity Climate Models

Dec. 6, 2024 — High-sensitivity climate models should not be excluded when predicting future regional climate impacts because the level of warming measured globally is not always the only good indicator of regional ...

Two-Way Water Transfers Can Ensure Reliability, Save Money for Urban and Agricultural Users During Drought in Western U.S.

Nov. 26, 2024 — A study offers a solution to water scarcity during droughts amid the tug of economic development, population growth and climate uncertainty for water users in Western U.S. states. The proposed ...

NASA Satellites Reveal Abrupt Drop in Global Freshwater Levels

Nov. 16, 2024 — The Earth's total amount of freshwater dropped abruptly starting in May 2014 and has remained low ever since. The shift could indicate Earth's continents have entered a persistently drier ...

Colorado River Basins Could Face Tipping Point, Drought Study Warns

Nov. 14, 2024 — Water from Colorado's West Slope basins plays a vital role in supporting the economy and natural environment across seven western U.S. states, but a new study finds that even under modest ...

Extreme Weather Accelerates Nitrate Pollution in Groundwater

Nov. 13, 2024 — Extreme weather from climate change, including droughts and heavy rains, may increase the risk of nitrates from fertilizers ending up in ...

Climate Change Parching the American West Even Without Rainfall Deficits

Nov. 6, 2024 — Higher temperatures caused by anthropogenic climate change turned an ordinary drought into an exceptional one that parched the American West from 2020--22. A study has found that evaporation ...

Droughts' Impact on Pasturelands Is Measured in Order to Guide Extensive Livestock Management on Spain's Dehesas

Oct. 30, 2024 — A study using meteorological data and remote sensors, aims to furnish livestock farmers with information to promote more efficient ...

Beehive Fences Are Highly Effective in Reducing Human-Elephant Conflict, but Researchers Warn of Future Risks

Oct. 29, 2024 — A groundbreaking, nine-year study has revealed that elephants approaching small-scale farms in Kenya avoid beehive fences housing live honey bees up to 86% of the time during peak crop seasons, ...

New Parasite Discovered Amid Decline of California's Unique Channel Island Fox

Oct. 23, 2024 — In the 1990s, the San Miguel Island fox nearly went extinct, with numbers dropping to just 15. A recovery program increased their population by 2010, but from 2014 to 2018, it fell to 30% of its peak ...

Weather-Changing El Nino Oscillation Is at Least 250 Million Years Old

Oct. 21, 2024 — A new modeling study shows that the El Nino event, a huge blob of warm ocean water in the tropical Pacific Ocean that can change rainfall patterns around the globe, was present at least 250 million ...

The 2022 European Drought: What Was the Role of Climate Change?

Oct. 21, 2024 — The drought that lasted through the summer of 2022 was especially intense and caused the soil in many regions of Europe to dry out substantially. Public discussions about the causes repeatedly ...

Combining Satellite Methods Provides Drought Detection from Space

Oct. 21, 2024 — Observing sites like the Amazon basin from space has underscored the capability of satellites to better detect signs of drought, according to a new study. The researchers combined Global Positioning ...

Chickpeas: Sustainable and Climate-Friendly Foods of the Future

Oct. 16, 2024 — Climate change has a negative impact on food security. Researchers have now conducted a study to investigate the natural variation of different chickpea genotypes and their resistance to drought ...

Climate Change Impacts Internal Migration Worldwide

Oct. 15, 2024 — The influence of climate change on migration, both current and future, has garnered significant attention from the public and policymakers over the past decade. A new study has provided the first ...

Researchers Discover How Plants Produce a Novel Anti-Stress Molecule

Oct. 9, 2024 — New research identifies for the first time the genes that help plants grow under stressful conditions -- with implications for producing more sustainable food crops in the face of global climate ...