Question

How do human activities cause droughts and floods?

Answer 1

Floods, hurricanes, droughts, and wildfires can all cause significant damage to humans. Although these events are typically thought of as natural disasters, or a naturally occurring event that causes damage to human life, sometimes they aren't so natural after all.

Since the beginning of time, humans have been impacting their environment in a costly way. Today, our growing population requires increased agricultural activity, which depends largely on deforestation to create suitable land. Our sprawling cities and consumption of fossil fuels also have a direct impact on the environment. These activities are also causing changes in global weather patterns, leading to an increase in natural disasters like floods and wildfires. Today, we're going to look at three problematic human activities and how they increase our risk for natural disasters.

Agriculture

Most people eat some form of animal products throughout the day. Milk, cheese, yogurt, and meat are often a staple in our diets. Unfortunately, these products are polluting our environment and increasing our risk for natural disasters.
Surprisingly, deforestation can also lead to severe droughts. Trees are an important part of the water cycle, bringing ground water back into the atmosphere. Less trees means less rainfall, increasing the risk for drought.

Another issue with agriculture is crop rotation. In crop rotation, farmers alternate which crops are grown per season. Different plants need different nutrients from the soil, so rotating crops ensures that no one nutrient becomes completely depleted. So what happens if farmers don't rotate crops? Nutrients needed for plant growth become scarce in the soil, making it difficult to grow anything. The lack of plants, like deforestation, causes increased risk for flooding, soil erosion, and drought.

Air Pollution

Since the Industrial Revolution, air pollution has increased exponentially. One of the biggest problems in the category of air pollution today is global warming. Global warming is an increase in the average global temperature of the Earth. Even seemingly small changes, just a few degrees Celsius, can be devastating for our planet. The leading cause of global warming is an increase in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxides. These gases enter the atmosphere when we burn fossil fuels, cut down trees, and increase our livestock production as we are currently doing.

Global warming has profound effects on our weather patterns in a process known as climate change. As the temperature of our atmosphere increases, glaciers melt and change both ocean temperatures and sea water levels.

Our oceans are a large regulator of weather patterns as they play an important role in the water cycle. Heating and cooling of the oceans influences evaporation, which causes precipitation and sometimes tropical storms. Although still debated, some scientists have correlated increased sea temperatures with the frequency, severity, and destructive power of Atlantic tropical storms. As global warming increases, ocean temperatures rise and storms get worse. In addition, many models show that a continued increase of global warming will lead to more intense storms.

Answer 2

Droughts and floods are the most common natural disasters in the coastal or riverine land areas.

Human works are also responsible for these hazards.Because,

1) Human works are degrading the soil of the river banks which increases the chances of flood.

2) Air pollutants which are created by the industrial sectors,are decreasing the rainfall amount which is a major reason behind the droughts.

And many more...