Drought in the Anthropocene (original) (raw)
- Commentary
- Published: 02 February 2016
- Tom Gleeson2,
- Julian Clark3,
- Albert I. J. M. Van Dijk4,
- Kerstin Stahl5,
- Jamie Hannaford6,
- Giuliano Di Baldassarre7,
- Adriaan J. Teuling8,
- Lena M. Tallaksen9,
- Remko Uijlenhoet8,
- David M. Hannah1,
- Justin Sheffield10,
- Mark Svoboda11,
- Boud Verbeiren12,
- Thorsten Wagener13,14,
- Sally Rangecroft1,
- Niko Wanders10 &
- …
- Henny A. J. Van Lanen8
Nature Geoscience volume 9, pages 89–91 (2016) Cite this article
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Drought management is inefficient because feedbacks between drought and people are not fully understood. In this human-influenced era, we need to rethink the concept of drought to include the human role in mitigating and enhancing drought.
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Figure 1: Drought propagation in the Anthropocene.

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Figure 2: Hypothetical schematic of the distinction between climate-induced drought, human-induced drought and human-modified drought.

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Authors and Affiliations
- Water Science Research Group, School of Geography, Earth, and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK
Anne F. Van Loon, David M. Hannah & Sally Rangecroft - Department of Civil Engineering, University of Victoria, Canada
Tom Gleeson - Human Geography Research Group, School of Geography, Earth, and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK
Julian Clark - Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
Albert I. J. M. Van Dijk - Hydrology, Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Freiburg, Germany
Kerstin Stahl - Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, UK
Jamie Hannaford - Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Sweden
Giuliano Di Baldassarre - Hydrology and Quantitative Water Management group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
Adriaan J. Teuling, Remko Uijlenhoet & Henny A. J. Van Lanen - Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, Norway
Lena M. Tallaksen - Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, USA
Justin Sheffield & Niko Wanders - National Drought Mitigation Center, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, USA
Mark Svoboda - Department of Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Boud Verbeiren - Department of Civil Engineering, University of Bristol, UK
Thorsten Wagener - Cabot Institute, University of Bristol, UK
Thorsten Wagener
Authors
- Anne F. Van Loon
- Tom Gleeson
- Julian Clark
- Albert I. J. M. Van Dijk
- Kerstin Stahl
- Jamie Hannaford
- Giuliano Di Baldassarre
- Adriaan J. Teuling
- Lena M. Tallaksen
- Remko Uijlenhoet
- David M. Hannah
- Justin Sheffield
- Mark Svoboda
- Boud Verbeiren
- Thorsten Wagener
- Sally Rangecroft
- Niko Wanders
- Henny A. J. Van Lanen
Corresponding author
Correspondence toAnne F. Van Loon.
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Cite this article
Van Loon, A., Gleeson, T., Clark, J. et al. Drought in the Anthropocene.Nature Geosci 9, 89–91 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2646
- Published: 02 February 2016
- Issue date: February 2016
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2646