Stanford University Pre-College Program · Summer 2025
In this research paper, I and my team used Tasmania’s ongoing drought as a case study to explain the four types of drought — meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, and socioeconomic — and how they interact on different timescales. I broke down the climate drivers behind it, like the Indian Ocean Dipole, El Niño-Southern Oscillation, and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, alongside the uncertainty baked into drought science from limited historical records and complex topography.
I also looked at how human activity like deforestation, overgrazing, and water mismanagement compounds these natural patterns, and the real impacts on Tasmania: strained agriculture, hydroelectric power (80% of the island’s energy), ecosystem risk, and worsening bushfires.
The big insights I learned are that drought in a region like Tasmania isn’t one simple phenomenon, but a layered mix of natural climate cycles and human pressure that’s getting harder to predict as the climate warms.