Influences Of Natural Disasters On Agriculture

Nowadays, naturally disasters occur frequently all around the world, inevitably affection various aspects of social life. These natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fires, volcanoes, tornadoes have devastation effects, especially exerting strong influence on agriculture. They challenge agricultural production to a great extent because agricultural production is highly dependent on weather, climate and water availability. It can be adversely affected by natural events and natural disasters.
Agricultural impacts from natural disasters generally include: contamination of water, loss of harvest or livestock, increased susceptibility to diseases, and destruction of irrigation systems and other agricultural infrastructure. Such impacts can have long lasting effects on agricultural production including crops, forest growth and arable lands, which require time to grow and thrive. The following are some specific examples of natural disasters and their influences on agriculture.
Floods are among the greatest natural disasters known to mankind. Impacts of floods on agriculture cannot be ignored. Floods cause loss of soil nutrients, soil erosion, permanent damage to perennial crops and livestock, greater susceptibility to diseases and insects etc. hot weather and extreme heat can worsen ozone levels and air quality. Excessive heat and prolonged drought conditions can affect agriculture by creating work safety issues for farm field workers, severely damaging crops and reducing availability of water and food supply for livestock. Wildfires can spread quickly and devastate thousands of acres of agricultural land. This devastation may lead to large losses in crops, forests, livestock and agricultural infrastructure. Earthquake is another common disaster which strikes the earthquake without much warning and causes dramatic changes to the landscape of an area. It also has devastating impacts on agricultural production and environment, including loss of harvest or livestock and destruction of irrigation systems and other farming properties. Also some other forms of natural disasters also may have great negative influences on agriculture. In fact, the frequency and seriousness of natural disasters have become the shared research issue for scientists all over the world and some experts suggest that the scientists should combine their efforts together to fight against the shared enemy.
From the above, it can be easily seen that as the agriculture depends much on nature, thus the harvest is greatly determined by the nature. In addition to investing in the agriculture facility construction, some other methods should also be adopted such as to develop crops with stronger life, to increase the reliability of the weather forecast etc.