Droughts of the Future and You

We've gotten off relatively easy as far as severe weather impacts this summer. We had some record-breaking tornadoes, record-breaking rain bombs, and a record-breaking hurricane, but for the most part we didn't suffer under some of the more overt disasters that have been our collective soup over the past few years. However, we've quietly been dealing with a worsening impact as the summer has worn on, and it's been particularly bad in Ohio, so I've got some firsthand experience to pass on to you.

And before you think that things are actually cool and good climatically, let me also say that things have generally just been kind of okay here. As is often the case, the United States has been largely spared of the effects of ruination that is has, largely, caused. For instance, the heat index in southern Iran was, recently, a full 180°F, which is just fucking bonkers. The Amazon is lit up with fires, and the global South generally speaking has been real damn hot. In addition, as this has been something we've talked about repeatedly, the global sea-surface temperature is still very high, bested only by the records set during last year's El Niño. While we're not really discussing the general state of the world's climate, it's important to remember that the world is still very much on fire.

Drought Conditions

I mentioned a couple letters ago that things have been dry in Ohio–which is a change from Ohio's recent luck of relatively good amounts of rainfall, if at times tempestuously received. This changed in 2024, with a mostly balmy winter and a decided lack of rainfall this summer. While I'm used to dry Augusts in Ohio, having a somewhat dry June and a very dry July, then a very, very dry August, was a reckoning for me.

In addition to driving through the city with a dry front moving in a few days ago, creating an actual (but very small) dust storm in the middle of Columbus it was so damn dry out which made me temporarily certain the apocalypse was at hand, I think that this drought played a part in the almost complete destruction of my garden. My yard is half-dead, and a Japanese maple we had out front went from last legs to death's door. If you look out around our neighborhood, you'll see quite a few trees have basically already thrown in the towel and begun turning.

Now, you'll note from the map linked above, most of Ohio isn't even doing that poorly–which means that my garden suffering and yard cracking bare isn't as bad as things could be. Reports from the USDM show that in southern Ohio and into West Virginia, conditions have been so bad as to create widespread crop-loss, and the selloff of livestock. Most of Texas is suffering under a drought of similar conditions across the state. When combined with the exhaustion of the Ogallala Aquifer (it's not quite tapped but damn near in places), you get the dire straits West Texas has been in for almost two decades, with cattle herds being sold, thousands of acres burning, and the land all but ruined.

How to Prepare

My garden, and any attempts at growing food, are largely just experiments due to my living on a property only twice the size of a postage stamp. However, it's been useful in letting me dial in certain practices, like using the Three Sisters companion planting technique–which I still haven't gotten quite right. Companion planting is one way to make good use of space, and therefore water, which is what we're talking about today.

The idea here isn't necessarily that you've got no running water at all, although the steps toward solving this problem are some of the same–it's that your region is in a bad enough drought that there are restrictions in place for municipal sources. Alternatively, maybe you simply don't want to just run your hose three times a day, because that can get spendy. So if we're talking about keeping your garden watered, the first thing you're going to want to do is install a rain barrel. We talked about rain barrels, probably years ago at this point, but it's worth bringing them up again.

Rain barrels are great in some contexts, but they won't work so well in others: if you have a new roof, you shouldn't be using the water collected in your rain barrel. If you don't own your home, you might not be allowed to cut into your downspout, as necessary for the barrel. You also might not live in a region where having one or a few rain barrels makes sense; if you are lucky enough to live somewhere that it does rain regularly and mostly will, you are probably not going to get to use the barrel enough to really make it worthwhile. Contrariwise, for someplace like Ohio, having a couple rain barrels is ideal, as we tend to get a period of decent rain followed by a dry spell, through which the barrels can tide you.

Depending on the size of your garden, or orchard, what have you, you may want to have multiple barrels. You can do this across your home, which will let you utilize more rainwater, but you can also run barrels in a series off a single gutter–just be careful about leveling the cut in the downspout and barrels as closely as you can. An uneven or off-level cut and piping can result in your barrels not filling properly, leaking, or draining outside of your downspout system once full–which can damage your foundation.

There are a few ways to minimize the need for water in your garden or orchard, as well, and you'll likely want to utilize these in tandem during a drought–or just in general, to be a good steward of resources. The first thing is a decent mulch over your entire bed, or the base of your trees. I use hay, which breaks down quickly to add nutrition to the soil, but in the meantime will help keep any moisture you put down in place. For young trees, which are mainly the ones you need to really worry about, you can additionally place a watering bag around them, which will slowly release water and prevent some evaporation.

A full-blown drinking water shortage in the United States may sound like an uncommon thing, but it's really not. It's probably way less common to occur due to a drought than due to wells running dry from overuse, or from infrastructure failures. Prepping for this is vastly different than prepping against a drought to keep your garden going. Do not–seriously, do not–drink water straight from a rain barrel. At the very least you will want a very thorough filtration system, if not something like a reverse osmotic system, to be sure you're not giving yourself a different kind of trouble. Rain barrel water can go in a yard, but not straight in your gullet. You are better served, for the time being, just storing drinking water in a cool, dry place, than you are trying to find a method to replace your water source. It's a complex undertaking, and it underpins your survival in a very basic way–you'll die without water pretty quick, and get pretty sick with tainted water even quicker.

A full fix for replacing your municipal source of drinking water is talk for another day. It's also the kind of project one would undertake with–as you might guess–your community.