Dust Bowl
Topic: Climate Change: Causes, Evidence and the Global Response · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 11 "World Climate and Climate Change"
Meaning
The Dust Bowl was a severe drought with huge dust storms in the 1930s. It hit the south-western Great Plains of the USA. Farmers had ploughed up the natural grassland, so the soil had no roots to hold it. When the rain failed, strong winds blew the topsoil away. Crops failed and many farm families moved west. It shows how a natural drought becomes a disaster when people misuse the land.
Example
The disaster led the USA to set up the Soil Conservation Service in 1935. It promoted ways to stop soil erosion, such as planting rows of trees as windbreaks and ploughing along the contours of slopes.
Don't confuse with
- Sahel drought: a drought in Africa's Sahel belt, south of the Sahara, from 1967 to 1977 and again in the 1980s. It caused famine and mass deaths and led to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (1994). The Dust Bowl was in the USA in the 1930s.