Floods, droughts, and news deserts

Here's an excerpt from the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk weekly newsletter. want more? Sign up here!

Spring showers have brought an end to drought in most of Missouri after two especially dry years, but pockets of drought persist throughout the Mississippi River Basin.

My home state has been more prone to flooding than drought. I grew up near the Missouri River’s wide floodplains in Marthasville, Missouri. High water blocked my route to high school across the river in Washington during the great flood of 1986. Broken levees, holes scoured deep enough by floodwater to swallow cars, and washed-out farm roads were features of my youth.

These days the Midwest suffers from precipitation extremes – from flood to drought and back again, sometimes within a matter of months, as the Ag & Water Desk covered in fall 2022 and last summer. Flash floods and flash droughts are both reality.

I recently had the chance to speak before the advisory committee of the Missouri Water Center, a hub that promotes research, collaboration, and training to address pressing water resource needs, drought and flood alike. I enjoyed listening to these dedicated volunteers, scientists and civil servants discuss their approach to managing one of our most precious resources: water.

I was also there to share the mission of the Ag & Water Desk. Like the Water Center, our collaborative arose to meet a deep need. Journalism has been suffering through the equivalent of a prolonged and extreme drought – the nation has lost a third of its newspapers since 2005, with 2.5 papers per week continuing to go out of business.

The rise in “news deserts” – places without access to local news coverage – has affected rural and poor places the most. Without a trusted local source of information, communities tend to see an increase in disinformation and corruption and a decrease in collective identity and pride.

Local news outlets are like community wells, nourishing people with fact-based information and building a stronger economic and knowledge base. The Ag & Water Desk supports local news by partnering with Report for America to place reporters in newsrooms across the region. We also provide our content, for free, to any news outlet that wants it.

Floods and droughts are likely to remain in this part of the world. Let’s not let local journalism wither away. Support your local news outlet, share this newsletter, and consider making a donation so that we can continue expanding coverage of local, fact-based news on agriculture and the environment.

Thanks for reading,

Sara

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