Are climate change and drought related? We asked Richard Daman, the World Bank's Chief Economist for Sustainable Development, and two experts from the Bank's Sustainable Development Department: Senior Economist Esha Zaveri and Senior Climate Change Specialist Nathan Engle. These three are the authors of the article Droughts and Deficits: Summary Evidence of the Global Impact on Economic Growth .

Is drought increasing and is climate change to blame?

Water deficits are quickly becoming the new normal. Over the past half-century, extreme "dry precipitation shocks"—that is, below-average precipitation—increased by 233 % in certain regions. A dry shock of one standard deviation from the norm is usually a rare event that can be expected to include the 15 driest episodes in a century. A dry shock, which is two standard deviations from the norm, is even rarer and includes the driest 2.5 years per century. Such dry episodes should be intermittent, but they occur more often. At the same time, areas with above-average precipitation are on the decline. (World Bank)