2006 extreme drought event of Chongqing
2006年重庆大旱的历史透视

Drought is one of the most damaging climate-related hazards to impact societies.Although drought is a naturally occurring phenomenon throughout most parts of the world,its effects have tremendous consequences to the physical,economic,social,and political elements of our environment.The typical severe drought of Chongqing at the last 100 years occurred in 2006,which was characterized by the most serious drought rarely seen in history in terms of long duration,high temperature intensity,water resource scarcity in combating drought,extensive disaster-affected areas and heavy losses.Here the climate background of severe drought was analyzed,and the comparison and assessment was made with the drought events which occurred in history,using the recorded historical documents in the last 1000 years.The analysis on the historical drought records in Chongqing for the past 1000 years showed that the "extreme drought" event in 2006 has occurred several times in Chongqing and its surrounding areas in historical periods,and was not the only one of many.The extreme climate event was not beyond the normal climatic fluctuation in the duration,impact and spatial coverage of this drought.The severe drought event occurred in Chongqing in 2006 reminds us that the global warming might lead to the significant increase in the frequency of the extreme warm event,and the similar disasters may occur usually.So the extreme event and its adverse effect in the context of climate warming is one of the scientific key issues,hence it is necessary to pay more attention to that in the future.