History warns of drought’s destructive force
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History warns of drought’s destructive force
The role of drought in the fall of ancient Mayan civilisation highlights the vital need today for water management in fighting the impacts of climate change.
By Tim Radford
LONDON, 31 August, 2016 – The Mayan civilisation in what is now Mexico perished more than a thousand years ago not just because of drought, but perhaps because of too much reliance on water in reservoirs.
The story of the rise and decline of ancient civilisations has resonance for today. And researchers at Vienna University of Technology in Austria, who modelled what they calculate must have been the pattern of events, have confirmed, once again, that prolonged drought probably brought a culture and a people to collapse.