Water is fundamental to all life. From the Dust Bowl of the 1930s to recent extreme shortages, modern societies often take water's abundance for granted until it becomes scarce. In this book, Benjamin I. Cook brings together climate science, hydrology, and ecology to provide a synthetic overview of drought and its environmental and social consequences, covering hydroclimate fundamentals, drought dynamics and variability, ecological effects, desertification, groundwater depletion, socioeconomic impacts, and drought risk management, with attention to paleoclimate and the role of drought in crises of ancient civilizations.