Droughts have occurred much more frequently and for longer all over the world since the beginning of the millennium. This is evident from the current UN drought report, which was presented at the 15th World Soil Conference in the capital of Ivory Coast, Abidjan. According to this, the number of droughts has increased by 29 percent since 2000. By 2050, more than three quarters of the world's population could be affected by droughts.
At the moment, 3.6 billion people live in areas where there is a lack of water at least a month a year. The African continent is still particularly affected: more than 300 drought events have been recorded there in the past 100 years, the report says. That is 44 percent of the droughts worldwide. However, in Europe, too, 45 larger droughts were recorded in the past century that met millions of people and caused an economic loss of $ 27.8 billion. In the meantime, around 15 percent of the land area and around 17 percent of the EU population have been affected by drought, according to the UN report. The annual economic losses in the EU and in the UK amounted to nine billion euros a year.
Especially in the north-east of Germany, farmers have been complaining regularly about drought problems for years. In April, for example, only 25 liters of rain fell per square meter in some places and increased the already existing precipitation deficit. The drought monitor of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research is already showing exceptional or extreme drought in the overall soil in large parts of Brandenburg, but also in regions of Lower Saxony. "Every year the world loses an area with fertile soils the size of Bulgaria," says Jochen Flasbarth, State Secretary of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in Abidjan. "We have to stop this. Without fertile soils, there is also no food.«
The UN-WUSTEN Convention (UNCCD) has existed since 1994. It aims to stop desertification and loss of fertile soils. To what extent these goals can be observed, review representatives from almost 200 countries at the World Floor Conference, which takes place by May 20.
