ABSTRACT
Climate change is causing an increase in the frequency of drought (Rodell, Velicogna, & Famiglietti, 2009; Taylor et al., 2012; Trenberth et al., 2014). More frequent, severe, or prolonged drought poses existential challenges to farming communities around the world. For subsistence farming households, consequences may include reductions in food security, drinking water access, household income, and ability to repay debt (Harvey et al., 2014; Hazell & Hess, 2010; Ye et al., 2012). Coping mechanisms may include sending household members to neighboring regions or countries to work, sending children to live with relatives in urban areas, liquidating livestock, or reducing the size or number of meals eaten per day (Morton, 2007; Roncoli, Ingram, & Kirshen, 2001). In extreme cases, the impact of water scarcity has been even more disastrous. For example, drought has been implicated in a 15% increase in the relative risk of suicide among rural males, ages 30-49 years, in New South Wales, Australia (Hanigan, Butler, Kokic, & Hutchinson, 2012). Anecdotal evidence for this link between drought and suicide also exists in some rural areas of India (Nagaraj, 2008).
