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California is in its sixth year of drought, which was barely dented by rains brought by the El Niño climate event and sparked a range of water restrictions in the state. But warming temperatures and uncertain rainfall mean that if more isn’t done to slow climate change, droughts lasting 35 years are likely to blight western states by the end of the century, according to the study, published in Science Advances.

Such a megadrought would impose “unprecedented stress on the limited water resources”

the study predicts a 70% chance of a megadrought by the end of the century,

Thus, the migration in response to the severe and prolonged drought exacerbated a number of the factors often cited as contributing to the unrest, which include unemployment, corruption, and rampant inequality. The conflict literature supports the idea that rapid demographic change encourages instability. Whether it was a primary or substantial factor is impossible to know, but drought can lead to devastating consequences when coupled with preexisting acute vulnerability, caused by poor policies and unsustainable land use practices in Syria’s case and perpetuated by the slow and ineffective response of the Assad regime [emphasis added].

suggests that an unprecedented drought accentuated frustration with the Assad regime and led to migration from rural to urban areas.

While climate change will probably increase the number and intensity of heavy showers, leading to more frequent landslides, intensive logging and government negligence in permitting new construction in these areas cause the real disasters.

The Colorado River basin is experiencing a chronic shortage due to natural flows along with a short-term problem of the current drought conditions. Additinally, Lake Mead’s natural flow patterns are projected to drop about 20 feet during 2014. An informative piece on this river rcently ran in the New York Times.

Reducing dependence on the Colorado River through voluntary agriculture-to-urban water transfers is one of the benefits of the Quantification Settlement Agreement (QSA)

The QSA defines the rights to a portion of water from the Colorado River for four water districts in Southern California