Afghanistan is ranked fourth among the nations most at risk from our changing climate "and eighth on the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index of countries most vulnerable and least prepared to adapt to climate change.
The nation is totally unprepared for what is bearing down on them. Afghans face their fourth year of severe drought. According to the United Nations, sixty percent of the population depends on rain-fed agriculture. However, rainfall and snowfall patterns are changing and ravaging agriculture, which leads to malnutrition, disease, and a reduced food supply in the decades-long war-ravaged nation.
Drought is the most frequently reported shock experienced by households in Afghanistan, increasing from 39 per cent in 2021 to 64 per cent in 2022. Today, 25 out of 34 provinces experience either severe or catastrophic drought conditions, affecting more than 50 per cent of the population. This is compounded by worsening economic hardship and the effects of four decades of war, which have left half the population in acute hunger, including 6 million people on the brink of famine.
Residents of Elyaskhail village, in Laghman Province, said their land was fertile 30 years ago; they grew different types of crops, the entire area was green and a nearby river flowed perennially. But the land is now dry and arid, trees and vegetation have vanished due to droughts and deforestation, and wildlife have migrated.
Most of the country’s major rivers originate in the central highlands (Bamyan and Daikundi Provinces), but major water sources for many areas are now significantly affected due to erratic rains, and rapid changes in the amount and timing of snowfall at these higher elevations.
Recurrent drought is drying surface-water sources, such as springs, while at the same time depleting groundwater levels for hand-dug and shallow wells. Some 49 per cent of boreholes assessed in Kabul Province are dry, and the remaining boreholes are functioning at only 60 per cent efficiency.
Elders in Gula Ram village, Laghman Province, explained that the water sources from melting ice in the mountains have dried up, along with vegetation. Mountains are now dry and bare, and medicinal trees and plants that grew in the mountains are extinct.
Climate change degrades soil everywhere, meaning soil is becoming less able to store carbon. This feedback loop does not receive the attention that the atmosphere receives. The process is called desertification, and it has affected more than seventy-five percent of Afghanistan's land area, reducing vegetation for grazing and accelerating soil degradation and crop production.
Since April, rainfall has swamped eighty percent of agricultural land after a winter drought, making the soil unable to absorb moisture. Recent heavy rain turned rivers into torrents of mud and debris barreling through villages, killing hundreds with even more missing and flooding agricultural land. Flash flooding results from heavy rainfall so hard that normal drainage is overwhelmed.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC), which is preparing its emergency response to the flooding that spans seven provinces, said “thousands” of people have been stranded without access to services.
“These latest floods have caused a major humanitarian emergency in Afghanistan, which is still reeling from a string of earthquakes at the beginning of this year as well as severe flooding in March,” said IRC Afghanistan director Salma Ben Aissa.
“Communities have lost entire families, while livelihoods have been decimated as a result,” she said.
More than half of the 600,000 people affected by the floods are children, Save the Children reported in a statement, adding that it is sending a “a ‘clinic on wheels’ with mobile health and child protection teams to support children and their families.”
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Flash floods from unusually heavy seasonal rains in Afghanistan have killed more than 300 people and destroyed over 1,000 houses, the U.N. food agency said Saturday.
The World Food Program said it was distributing fortified biscuits to the survivors of one of the many floods that hit Afghanistan over the last few weeks, mostly the northern province of Baghlan, which bore the brunt of the deluges Friday.
In neighboring Takhar province, state-owned media outlets reported the floods killed at least 20 people.
Videos posted on social media showed dozens of people gathered Saturday behind the hospital in Baghlan looking for their loved ones. An official tells them that they should start digging graves while their staff are busy preparing bodies for burial.
The main road from Kabul to the north has been partially destroyed, preventing aid from reaching the area by truck.
Yale Climate Connections on why heavy rainfall is increasing in intensity and frequency.
Higher temperatures cause more liquid water to evaporate from soils, plants, oceans, and waterways, becoming water vapor. This additional water vapor means there’s more moisture available to condense into raindrops when conditions are right for precipitation to form. And more moisture spells heavier rain, or heavier snow during winter.