The Cost of Droughts
Droughts that persist for more than a few years can be especially damaging to agriculture and cause the deaths of trees that have been growing in forests for decades. More than 100 million trees died and then became safety hazards during the five-year drought in California in 2016, according to the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Stressed water supplies in the Northeast and Southeast from extreme droughts also had a significant impact on the agricultural industry.
The total economic cost of the 2016 droughts was approximately $3.7 billion.