What we learned from the Dust Bowl: lessons in science, policy, and adaptation

Abstract

This article provides a review and synthesis of scholarly knowledge of Depression-era droughts on the North American Great Plains, a time and place known colloquially as the Dust Bowl era or the Dirty Thirties. Recent events, including the 2008 financial crisis, severe droughts in the US corn belt, and the release of a popular documentary film, have spawned a resurgence in public interest in the Dust Bowl. Events of the Dust Bowl era have also proven in recent years to be of considerable interest to scholars researching phenomena related to global environmental change, including atmospheric circulation, drought modeling, land management, institutional behavior, adaptation processes, and human migration. In this review, we draw out common themes in terms of not only what natural and social scientists have learned about the Dust Bowl era itself, but also how insights gained from the study of that period are helping to enhance our understanding of climate–human relations more generally.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11111-013-0190-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Drought in a human-modified world: reframing drought definitions, understanding, and analysis approaches

“…Consequently, there is a difference between short-and long-term droughts, where longer 3642 A. F. Van Loon et al: Drought in a human-modified world droughts show a more complex interaction of natural and human processes (Van Dijk et al, 2013). Societies can also learn from historic droughts and adapt drought policy in the long-term to be more proactive, rather than reactive, when the next drought comes (McLeman et al, 2014). Crucially, however, human activities are not only influenced by climate and the drought state of the system but are also strongly dependent on domestic water behaviours (Pullinger et al, 2013), national policy styles (Gober, 2013), existing public policies (particularly for agriculture; Campos, 2015), water law and governance (Maggioni, 2015), and even indirectly by international food markets and geopolitics.…”

Characterizing the potential for drought action from combined hydrological and societal perspectives

“…We are also interested in exploring why people perceive the importance of water for various uses differently. For this, we again interrogate the interview data using a social science theory called the cultural theory of risk (CTR; Douglas, 1966;McNeeley and Lazrus, 2014). According to the CTR, people hold different cultural worldviews about how society should be organized and how society and nature should interact.…”

“…Understanding human feedbacks on drought is important but has not been well studied, partially because of its complexity and potential for nonlinear feedbacks (Van Loon et al, 2016b). Drought feedbacks can be influenced by many factors, for example, through science and technology (Polsky and Cash, 2005), historical lessons learned (McLeman et al, 2014), and management strategies (Maggioni, 2015). Further, feedbacks may be positive (i.e., the drought is made worse) or negative (i.e., the drought condition is alleviated) (Pulwarty, 2003;Tijdeman et al, 2018).…”

Sand and Dust Storms: Impact Mitigation

“…One significant result of the catastrophic socio-ecological effects of the Dust Bowl was much greater participation of government in soil conservation and land management issues. McLeman et al [131] have reviewed the initiatives. A national Soil Conservation Service (SCS), created in the USA in 1935, identified areas in need of remediation using aerial photography surveys and detailed soil maps.…”