Socioeconomic Drought

Socioeconomic drought occurs when the demand for economic goods and services (such as energy, food, and drinking water) exceeds supply as a result of weather-related water shortage.

This graph shows that increasing demand for water (red line) from the Colorado River Basin outpaced supply (blue line) as the region confronted a multi-year drought. Water volume is measured in million acre-feet (MAF)—the amount of water that covers 1 million acres of land to the depth of 1 foot, about 326 billion gallons.