Likelihood of Prolonged Drought—Map : Climate Interactive

Big messages:

As global temperature rises, weather conditions that increase evaporation and decrease precipitation will become more likely in some regions. These factors reduce surface water and dry out soils and vegetation, leading to drought.
In general, higher latitudes such as Canada and Russia are expected to get wetter from climate change, while drier areas such as the southwestern United States, the Mediterranean, and southern Africa, will become drier (Trancoso et al., 2024).
Strong climate policies that rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions today can lower the risk of lengthy droughts.
Adaptation measures will be important in areas where droughts become more likely. Droughts can impact local and regional water supplies, agriculture, transportation, energy supplies, and public health.

Use the search function to zoom in on the location relevant to the audience. Compare the Baseline Scenario in a recent year (e.g., 2020) to a future year (e.g., 2100) to show the increase in drought probability for that location. After creating a scenario with climate action, compare the Baseline and Current Scenario in the future year to highlight the impact of reducing emissions and the need for adaptation.
This map shows the likelihood of moderate droughts. NOAA defines this type of drought as resulting in “some damage to crops, pastures, fire risk high; streams, reservoirs or wells low, some water shortage developing or imminent, voluntary water use restrictions requested” (NOAA, 2024).
The threshold for moderate drought is determined locally and relative to historical conditions. For example, a moderate drought in the Amazon rainforest will be much wetter than a moderate drought in the southwest United States.
Multi-year drought in already dry regions can eventually lead to ecosystem changes and desertification. The “Arid Land Expansion from Warming” graph shows the change in the area of arid and hyper-arid land globally due to temperature increase.

Drought can exacerbate existing inequities. Rural communities often face challenges accessing reliable and clean water supplies. People with lower incomes or who face language barriers might not be able to access government help (Greene & Ferguson, 2024).
Water scarcity can lead to water prices that are unaffordable for many low-income households and small-scale farmers.
Households that are dependent on well water may be especially impacted by lower water levels, and droughts can also cause contamination of well water by toxins such as arsenic (Peer et al., 2024)

The map is sourced from Probable Futures’ “Likelihood of year-plus drought” map.
The light gray area indicates regions where data is either unavailable or there is not significant vegetation.
The map is divided into squares that are approximately 22 square kilometers (km²) in area.
The map only shows changes of 0.5°C increments between 0.5-3.0°C of global temperature increase.