Elephants require large volumes of water daily and are profoundly affected by drought. Water stress creates acute suffering and triggers dangerous human-wildlife conflict.
Drought creates acute welfare crises for individual elephants and entire family groups who may travel for days in search of water. Calves die first, causing grief-like responses in adult females who may remain with dying or deceased calves for extended periods. The desperation of water-seeking herds drives them into human settlements where conflict and retaliatory killing compounds the welfare toll. Artificial water provision in protected areas during acute drought reduces immediate suffering but requires monitoring to prevent disease concentration and over-dependence. Long-term solutions require both climate action and improved human-elephant coexistence planning that provides drought refuges away from agricultural areas.