As countries across Latin America and the Caribbean prepare for the possible return of El Niño, concerns are growing about its potential impacts on food production, water resources and livelihoods. In a Deutsche Welle (DW) article published in June 2026, UNU-EHS senior researcher Jack O'Connor explained how a strong El Niño could worsen the effects of droughts, disrupt fisheries and increase disaster risks across the region.
Drawing on existing scientific evidence, O'Connor noted that previous El Niño events have been associated with more severe droughts, creating significant challenges for food production. Crops such as maize and rice are particularly vulnerable to prolonged dry conditions, while increased drought can also heighten wildfire risks in major agricultural regions, including parts of the Amazon basin.
The article also highlights the potential effects of El Niño on marine ecosystems. According to O'Connor, changes in ocean currents can disrupt the availability of nutrients for small fish species such as anchoveta, with a chain reaction of impacts throughout the food chain. These disruptions can affect larger fish populations and have important consequences for fisheries along the Pacific coast, particularly in countries such as Peru and Ecuador.
Despite these risks, O'Connor emphasized that improved forecasting offers an opportunity for preparedness and adaptation. The unusually early and robust predictions currently available can help governments, communities and producers prepare for extreme conditions by strengthening water management systems and promoting more climate-resilient agricultural practices.
Looking beyond the immediate impacts of El Niño, O'Connor underscored the importance of building long-term resilience through climate-smart agriculture, more sustainable food systems and a reduction in fossil fuel dependence, which remains a major driver of climate change and increasingly extreme weather events.
Read the full article in Spanish on the Deutsche Welle website. A translation into English can be found below.
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El Niño puts Latin America and the Caribbean on high alert
By Judit Alonso
The World Meteorological Organization’s confirmation of a strong El Niño episode has put the region, one of the most exposed to this phenomenon, under significant strain.
After weeks of monitoring, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed in a statement that there is an 80 percent probability of a strong El Niño episode developing between June and August, driven by unusually warm ocean waters and strong subsurface warming. The Organization also announced that there is around a 90 percent probability that these conditions will persist until next November.
“There is still uncertainty about the exact timing and intensity of the peak,” Bárbara Tapia Cortes, Technical Coordinator for Services at the WMO Regional Office for the Americas, based in Asunción, Paraguay, told DW.
This is because the peak will depend on ocean-atmosphere interaction over the coming months, as well as on the evolution of subsurface heat, winds and other climate factors. For this reason, the Chilean meteorologist says September should bring greater clarity on the “likely intensity, timing and persistence of the event.”
In any case, Latin America will be one of the regions most affected by this new El Niño event, the warm phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), whose counterpart and cold phase is known as La Niña.
“El Niño has a major influence on Latin America because of its proximity and is generally known to cause drought in northern regions, while increasing wet conditions in the south and northwest. Much of the continent is also likely to experience periods of intense heat during and after the peak of El Niño,” Ben Clarke, a researcher specializing in extreme weather events and climate change at Imperial College London, told DW.
He also warns that these hot and dry conditions can substantially increase the risk of wildfires. “This can have enormous impacts on biodiversity, drastically reduce air quality and turn one of the world’s major carbon sinks, Brazil, into a source of carbon,” the researcher said, while also pointing to the phenomenon’s other side.
“We know that these conditions increase the likelihood of dangerous torrential rainfall in northwestern South America, especially along the coasts of Peru and Ecuador, and in southern South America, particularly in southern Brazil, Uruguay and northern Argentina,” he added.
Agriculture and fisheries affected
These impacts will have consequences for the primary sector. “Agriculture will face higher production costs as a result of a range of conditions, including water restrictions for crops, damage to infrastructure caused by flooding, an increase in pests and diseases and greater risks to food security and reduced income, especially for rural family households,” Isabel Mesquita, Regional Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Global Landscapes Forum, told DW.
Corn and beans in Central America and soybeans in Brazil, together with rice, coffee, sugar cane and cocoa, will be the crops most affected, according to this specialist, who also points to harmful impacts on livestock farming.
“The impacts on fisheries can be considerable, especially along the Pacific coast in countries such as Peru and Ecuador,” Jack O’Connor, Senior Researcher at the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), based in Bonn, Germany, told DW. He highlights significant changes in ocean currents. “As a result, small fish such as anchoveta may struggle to access the nutrients they need to survive. This, in turn, affects larger species that depend on them as a food source,” he added.
Information for prevention
Despite all this, the experts and researchers consulted by DW agree that having data in advance is an advantage. “Unlike a hurricane, El Niño can be monitored and predicted months in advance. That window of time allows governments to move from a reactive approach to anticipatory action,” Tapia said.
“We have unusually early and robust forecasts of what could happen. This gives us the opportunity to adopt more climate-resilient crop varieties and to better prepare our water infrastructure to cope with the extreme conditions expected,” O’Connor said.
Accordingly, “governments can update contingency plans, strengthen the monitoring of droughts, heavy rainfall, floods, heat waves and wildfires, and coordinate preparedness measures across meteorology, disaster risk management, agriculture, water, health, energy and social protection,” the Chilean meteorologist added.
In this regard and given that El Niño tends to alter the distribution of water across the continent, Clarke supports preventive measures such as water storage systems for drought-prone regions and flood preparedness.
To avoid the worst consequences of these impacts on crops, Mesquita recommends actions ranging from soil restoration, ecosystem conservation, access to climate information and early warning systems, to expanding rural finance, crop insurance, credit and social protection systems for smallholder farmers.
More broadly, O’Connor, in addition to advocating for climate-smart agricultural practices, urges people to consume food produced in more sustainable ways and to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, “one of the main drivers of climate change and of the extreme weather events we are already experiencing.”
