The state government has instructed Forest employees to tackle possible flood situations by coordinating with district administration. At the behest of Forest Minister Kunwar Vijay Shah a circular has been issued to all the conservators of forests, officers of National Parks and divisional forest officers to coordinate with the district administration and make available adequate staff, vehicles and boats for overcoming drought situation. They have also been instructed to use telecommunication network for sending assistance to flood-affected areas.

Observations show that the standard precipitation index (SPI ) over the southern Amazon region decreased in the period of 1970

Dust aerosols can suppress rainfall by increasing the number of cloud condensation nuclei in warm clouds and affecting the surface radiation budget and boundary layer instability. The extent to which atmospheric dust may affect precipitation yields and the hydrologic cycle in semiarid regions remains poorly understood. We investigate the relationship between dust aerosols and rainfall in the West African Sahel where the dust-rainfall feedback has been speculated to contribute to sustained droughts.

Deniliquin (Australia): Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of this dusty southern Australian town, remembers the constant whir of the rice mill. "It was our little heartbeat out there, tickety-tick-tickety,' he said, imitating the giant fans that dried the rice, "and now it has stopped.' The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain to meet the needs of 20 million people around the world. But six long years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australia's rice crop by 98% and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December.

Scientists predicted Thursday that climate change in coming decades will cause more flooding in the Northern Hemisphere and droughts in some southern and arid zones. In addition, they said that some areas around the Mediterranean, parts of southern Africa, northeastern Brazil and the western US region will likely suffer water shortages. Rajendra Pachauri, the chief UN climate scientist, said at the end of a meeting in Budapest that the rising frequency and intensity of floods and droughts could lead to a food crisis.

Southern Africa is a region facing multiple stressors, including chronic, recurrent food insecurity and persistent threats of famine. Climate information, including seasonal climate forecasts, has been heralded as a promising tool for early-warning systems and agricultural risk management in southern Africa. Nevertheless, there is concern that climate information, for example climate forecasts, are not realizing their potential value in the region.

Original Source

Baobab trees are often cited in the literature as water-storing trees, yet few studies have examined this assumption. We assessed the role of stored water in buffering daily water deficits in two species of baobabs (Adansonia rubrostipa Jum. and H. Perrier and Adansonia za Baill.) in a tropical dry forest in Madagascar. We found no lag in the daily onset of sap flow between the base and the crown of the tree. Some night-time sap flow occurred, but this was more consistent with a pattern of seasonal stem water replenishment than with diurnal usage.

India being mainly an agricultural country the economy and further its growth purely depends on the vagaries of the weather and in particular the extreme weather events. The information on extreme weather events lie scattered in the scientific and technical papers and in the research work of many authors and if put together will help the research community for further analysis.

A National Contingency Action Plan (CAP)for dealing with contingencies arising in the wake of natural disasters has been
formulated by the Government of India and it had been eriodically updated. It facilitates the launching of relief operations without delay. The CAP identifies the initiatives required to be taken by various Central Ministries/Departments in

Climate data gathered in the region during 20th century indicate heating, estimated at more than 1

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