China issues first national drought alert of the year amid record heatwave

China issued its first national drought alert of the year on August 18, 2022, after regions from Sichuan in the southwest to Shanghai in the Yangtze Delta have experienced weeks of extreme heat. The alert is two notches short of the most serious warning on China’s scale, with government officials citing global climate change as the cause. High temperatures are forecast to persist for at least another week.