This week on Earth Beat we find out why a drought is not necessarily a drought. We visit a sturdy house built out of straw, and learn some new construction technique from those tiny master builders, termites.

Listen to this week's programme

Voices from a sand storm: This past week, residents of Sydney in Australia, awoke to find their city cloaked in an eerie red mist. The winds moved soil a staggering 2400 km from the Lake Eyre Basin in Queensland. Several factors conspired to cause the Sydney storm, but the underlying cause is a 10 year drought that has turned parts of Australia's interior into a giant dust bowl. Here's how Sydney-siders reacted to the biggest dust storm in 70 years.

Listen Here
 

Career change for nomads: In Northern Africa as many as 23 million people are being affected by a serious drought – Nomads have found their way of life particularly hard hit. Our correspondent Koert Lindijer, visited the nomads of Norhtern Kenya, to find out how they are coping.

When a drought isn't a drought: With serious drought in north east Africa and unprecedented sand storms in Sydney, it’s easy to conclude global warming is the cause. Drought expert Dr Mark Winslow disagrees, he says it’s more to do with growing the new crops in the wrong places.
Listen Here

Sustainable straw houses: At first thought, building a house out of straw doesn’t seem like the cleverest idea. Think three little pigs – think huffing and puffing – house blowing down. And even if it’s not blowing away, the ease with which straw catches alight surely makes it an unwise choice. But in fact, straw has been used as a building material since houses have been built.

A few straw bale houses have been built in one of Amsterdam’s newest suburbs. Earth Beat’s Thijs Westerbeek went to have a look.

Listen Here
 

Envirominute: vertical farming:
We’ve been talking lack of fertile farmland and green houses so far in the programme. So it’s apt that this week’s Envirominute nicely combines the two in a look at multi-story urban farming.

Listen Here

Termite building technique: Engineer Dr Rupert Soar has been studying termites for years and has scanned their mounds and scaled up to create a termite pavilion. Marnie met the Dr. inside a 6 square meter weird and wonderful replica of a termite home and found out how these master builders fine tune their structures to regulate temperature and humidity. And all without electricity.

Listen Here