Book Review

For someone who has done a fair amount of research into drought in the Canadian Prairie Provinces, I was salivating to read about drought in the rest of the world and curious about how researchers from other parts of the world have dealt with the Canadian drought situation.

Sheffield and Wood wrote an easy to read book aimed at an undergraduate audience. As such, they very briefly touch on many topics including why there are so many definitions of drought, what teleconnection patterns there are around the world, and how these teleconnections influence the climate.

The purpose and goal for writing this book was to: “provide an understanding of the mechanisms of how drought occurs and impacts, to apply this to historic droughts, and to understand why future droughts may change.”

The authors cover many areas in a limited amount of space; it is very difficult to cover everything there is to know about drought in a 200 page book. While the authors do not cover information that I previously did not know regarding the science behind drought, it was interesting to read about droughts in other parts of the world and their associated impacts. The nine chapters included defining drought, why droughts occur, determining if or how severe a drought is, the extensiveness of drought in the past millennia, and how this information is obtained. The authors also examine the drought of the 20^th century and what the impacts were around the world. They also examine the likelihood of droughts in the 21^st century and how these projections are obtained. Many diagrams and tables both in colour and black/white assist with explaining drought and all of its facets. These figures are useful; however, some of the black/white ones are difficult to read as their shades are similar (e.g., Figure 8.7).

There are many strong points to this book. Sheffield and Wood explain very well what a drought is and how it so negatively impacts the world. They explain the pitfalls of figuring out palaeo information and how it is a challenge both in quantity and quality. The authors examine drought on a global scale, but the primary focus is on the United States. This is understandable as they are researchers based in the United States and have gained most of their practical knowledge through examining that country's drought issues.

While Sheffield and Wood cover many topics extremely well, I was concerned that the authors missed some major droughts that affected Canada. In addition, they lumped information for Canada and Mexico in with information for the United States. Significant droughts that were missed on the Canadian Prairies included the drought of 1961, and the drought of 2001, which affected most of southern Canada (Wheaton et al., 2008). If the authors missed those droughts in Canada, it makes one wonder about the accuracy of their research into drought in the rest of the world. Also, the authors say there were severe droughts in the Canadian Prairies in the 1950s. This was not the case. The 1950s in the Canadian Prairies was a relatively stable period leaning towards moist conditions (Bonsal and Regier, 2007; Maybank et al., 1995). Finally, it was also difficult to figure out what they meant when they said “northern Canada”… is this north of 60° or further north, or further south?

As a general book on drought, however, it is very good and well suited to an undergraduate audience. For a researcher wanting more detailed information, I was left wanting more.