drought

In the U.S., Native Americans will be some of the hardest hit by climate change, says The Smithsonian, and water—or a lack of it—will be at the heart of their struggle.

Six weeks are left in the rainy season in California "and results are mixed," reports The Atlantic. Heavy rain and snow swept the state over the weekend, but the state "as a whole seems on track to have only an average precipitation year."

While organic agriculture yields less than conventional farming systems, it surpasses on a wide spectrum of sustainability benefits, a review study published in Nature Plants found.

Much of central and southern Texas is abnormally dry following unusually warm weather and two months of scanty rainfall, reports the Drought Monitor.

A survey of over 400 young farmers and ranchers in the western United States found that finding water was even more of an issue than access to land and capital, says Civil Eats.

The California snowpack is only 83 percent of the average for March 1, "the result of moderate precipitation since last October and relatively warm temperatures," said the state Department of Water Resources.

Oregon and California announced on Tuesday that they will remove four hydroelectric dams in the Klamath Basin that have been at the heart of a years-long fight between tribes, farmers and environmentalists.

One of the strongest El Niño weather patterns in half a century is bringing the second consecutive year of low rainfall and high temperatures to southern Africa, humanitarian agencies report. They warn that food shortages could be the worst since a 2002-03 food crisis.

Researchers at Purdue say genetically engineering plants to produce high levels of the protein PYL9 can dramatically improve drought tolerance in rice.

Only 3 percent of juvenile Chinook salmon survived the 2015 spawning season in California’s Sacramento River, said the National Marine Fisheries Service on Monday. With drought haunting the state, there wasn’t enough cold water in the river. The fish “were cooked to death,” says The Sacramento Bee.

California's $53-billion agriculture industry is rallying behind a bill for the November ballot that would move money intended for the state’s high-speed bullet train to new water projects.

The U.S. Forest Service released a new report on Monday, detailing the effects of drought on forests and rangelands.

California water officials said snowpack in the Sierra Nevada was nearly 19 inches or 115 percent of average, "a modest yet encouraging milestone in a period of prolonged drought," says the Los Angeles Times. It was the deepest snowpack in five years. Meanwhile El Niño rainstorms have raised water levels in reservoirs.

With rainfall far below normal and the growing season advancing this year, southern Africa will increasingly deplete its food supplies and cash reserves to buy food, said the World Food Program.

A government-owned newspaper says Zimbabwe plans to import up to 700,000 tonnes (28 million bushels) of corn this year to offset crops lost to drought caused by El Niño, said Reuters.

Agriculture Minister Senzeni Zokwana said South Africa, an agricultural bellwether, "might be compelled to import maize by April or May due to ongoing drought, reports The Citizen newspaper.

"A water utility on paper," the Westlands Water District in southern California "is a formidable political force" with a $950,000 budget in 2015 for government and political relations, reports the New York Times.

One-quarter of the world’s crops, from bananas and plantains to rice, wheat, corn, and soybeans, are grown in areas where the water supply is highly stressed or highly variable, said the World Resources Institute on Wednesday. Rice, wheat, and corn, three of the most important crops, are particularly vulnerable, it said.