China Drought

Blog 4
Nate Sykes
2/15/11
12:26 PM

China Drought

Northern China where three fifths of China's crops grow and where more then two fifths of China's people are housed is in a serious drought right now and is considered the worst drought in north China in the last half century. This area of China is usually a little dry to begin with because it only gets one fifth of the water the rest of the country gets any way but with the drought it is making things a lot worse for the people living in northern China. This drought is drying out all the wells that people drink from in northern China and is destroying China's best crops. With winter weat being china's second largest crop the lack of water could raise the cost of irragation and lower the income for farmers. The goverment of China has put more then 10 billion dollars into drought relief efforts and has even gone so far has to try to use certain chemicals to make the clouds rain.

This is a social problem because if Nothern China does not get water then some people will start to dye of thirst and crops will be destroyed. With crops being destroyed that might affect alot of people outside of the country who might be dependent on Import weat from China. China has done many things and put a lot of money into the drought issue to help resolve it; but even if that helps now if they don't get rain the drilling of new wells and putting water in the old ones useing water trucks is only going to be a temporary solution. If rain does not come people might start having to leave there homes to avoid dying or getting sick from lack of drinking water. With China's way of handling it if they get rain soon then everything will turn out all right and atleast some of the crops will be hable to be harvested.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/world/asia/25drought.html