Iraq's Marsh Arabs have coexisted with the wetlands' unique ecosystem for 6,000 years. Photo: Dr. Michael Izady, Ph.D. (flickr)

Southern Iraq is home to one of the largest wetlands in the world, where the tributaries of the Tigris and Euphrates meet. But a three-year drought in the Middle East, along with dams and water projects in neighboring countries, has left southern Iraq with a serious water shortage, reports the BBC.

For 6,000 years these wetlands have been home to people called Marsh Arabs. They made their huts out of the marsh reeds, ate fish they caught in the waters, and sold the milk and cheese they made from water buffalo milk, explains the LA Times. (A beautiful slide show of Iraq's marshlands and the Marsh Arabs accompanies the The LA Times article.) But now these wetlands are roughly 30 percent of their former size, says the BBC, and they are continuing to shrink.

The marsh's dropping water levels have devastated the wealth of the region and the livelihoods of the Marsh Arabs. Jassim Asadi, of the nonprofit conservation group Nature Iraq, tells the LA Times the marshes used to supply two-thirds of the fish consumed in Iraq. Now people buy bottled water and frozen fish imported from Iran. “It is an economic disaster,” Asadi says.

Though the drought is "the most immediate cause" threatening the wetlands and their inhabitants, regional water politics cannot be ignored, the BBC says. The Tigris and Euphrates flow through multiple countries, and the rivers are the main water source in the area. A BBC video helps break down the situation:

About 70 percent of Iraq's waters originates outside the country, in Turkey, Syria, and Iran... These countries already have ambitious damn and irrigation projects, limiting how much is left for Iraq. And yet more damns are planned — further reducing the flow into the marshes.

Some scholars and politicians remain hopeful that diplomacy and cooperation amongst the different Middle Eastern countries will allow for more equitable water management. But as things stand now, there is no immediate fix on the horizon.

Sugar is a popular commodity in India, where imports are expected to rise as droughts cause sugar prices to rise by 50 percent. Here vendors make sugar cane juice. Photo: Jim-C (flickr)

Sugar rushes tend to be followed by sugar crashes.

The western Indian state of Maharashtra has been called the "sugar bowl" of India, but that may be changing. A New York Times video sheds some light on the problems farmers in Maharashtra face as sugar production decreases, causing prices to rise.

India is the world's second-largest sugar producing country. But factors like insufficient rainfall, small plots of land and government regulation of the market are impacting sugar production in India and therefore driving up the price, making imported sugar a more affordable option in India.

Millions are on the edge of starvation in the Horn of Africa due in part to severe drought. Photo: Filipe Moreira (flickr)

Somalia and Ethiopia are hovering at the edge of famine.

The Washington Post reported on the crisis in the “hungry horn” of Africa last week. In Somalia, U.N. officials predict that half of the population, about 3.5 million people, will need food aid. The New York Times explains the hunger is driven by rampant political insecurity, spikes in global food prices, devaluation of the local currency, and a severe drought.

The World Food Program is struggling to keep up, having already doubled the amount of food it distributes in Somalia and needing an additional 369,000 metric tons of food in Ethiopa. But Doctors Without Borders, a medical aid organization, says the situation just keeps getting worse as cereal prices in the Horn in the last year surged by as much as 375 percent. To make things worse, the drought has killed of most livestock, forcing formerly self-sufficient people to wait in line for food aid.

The next rainy season isn’t due till October, and the wells and watering holes that the people and animals depend on during the dry season are already drying up. Even the camels are hard pressed to survive.

Mercy Corps' country director in Somalia says "It's a life or death situation right now." A 72-year-old herder says it's "the worst I've ever seen."

International Medical Corps, another international medical aid organization in Somalia, is predicting grave starvation risks, with a recent 400 percent rise in the number of severely malnourished young children.

And the current drought — and its problems — are probably here to stay. Researchers have discovered that global warming is drying out the Horn of Africa — and it's happening much faster than anyone anticipated.

What will happen when current drought becomes a permanent shift to desert conditions? Somalia is only the first. Ethiopia is soon to follow.

Whether it is Somalia’s food crisis, the multi-year drought in Australia, or flooding in the American bread basket, climate change is going to vastly affect the world’s food markets.

Photo: Rob McDougall (flickr)

Access to cheap energy underpins modern societies. Finding enough to fuel industrialized economies and pull developing countries out of poverty without overheating the climate is a central challenge of the 21st century. — Michael Wines, New York Times

Sub-Saharan Africa is perilously close to an energy crisis.

Massive drought across Kenya and Ethiopia has slowed hydropower production to a trickle. Rickety electrical infrastructure in South Africa and elsewhere has led to huge rolling blackouts expected to go on for years in some regions, according to the International Herald Tribune. The World Bank says Africa's "lack of reliable power has already begun to hamper the region's development." The worst-hit African economies have seen economic growth slow by more than two percent.

Energy shortages impact a broad array of activities in these countries. In Uganda, for instance, power shortages are causing gas stations to run low on diesel. The environment suffers as well. For the 80 percent of sub-Saharan Africans who lack electricity, Inter Press Service News Agency says:

The destruction of natural vegetation could lead to desertification when there are no water catchment systems to feed rivers and streams. And when there is no water, the population in such an area suffers in many ways. They cannot plant crops and their animals die.

Solutions to the energy crisis still seem far off. India and China have begun funding new power generating facilities — in one instance providing Zambia's energy producer, Zesco, with $1.2 billion for upgrades and new capacity creation. But the sheer size of the problem suggests a multinational approach. "The best answer, most experts consulted agree, would be for nations to cooperate on regional power solutions," the New York Times reports. "One or two large regional plants, they say, could supply power more cheaply and efficiently than dozens of smaller ones."