Excerpt from "U.S. megadrought is around the corner: What it will mean to Canadians"
By Nicole Mortillaro, Global News, Oct. 15, 2016
[...] The effects of a drought of that magnitude would be far-reaching.
Don Burn, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, said that Canada could expect to see economic repercussions.
New Mexico, for example, exports about $180 million worth of goods to Canada every year. In particular, they trade pasta, breads and cereal preparations worth about $15 million annually.
Arizona exports roughly $1.6 billion in goods to Canada.
And it’s not just about agriculture. A long-lasting, intense drought could force companies to move out of the region to another that isn’t struggling.
And all this economic strain means that Canadians might see rising prices for goods or food.
However, it may not all be bad.
There could be some positive scenarios as well,” said Burn. “There could be situations where our farmers could provide for others. So, our farmers could be selling crops at a higher price as well.
Megadroughts have been known to also have other consequences. Recently, researchers linked a megadrought that occurred in the late 16th century in Mexico to an outbreak of “cocoliztli” that killed roughly five to 15 million people — about 80 per cent of the population. This disease was gruesome and unrelenting.
“The symptoms included high fever, severe headache, vertigo, black tongue, dark urine, dysentery, severe abdominal and thoracic pain, large nodules behind the ears that often invaded the neck and face, acute neurologic disorders, and profuse bleeding from the nose, eyes, and mouth with death frequently occurring in three to four days,” according to the CDC.
It’s believed that spread of the disease was aided in part by persistent drought conditions that allowed rodents to spread it rapidly.
Preparing for the worst
Burn said that the region should be trying to prepare now.
They can be storing more water in times when you have sufficient amounts,” he said. “But it would take decades to get infrastructure in place, especially if the drought has already begun.