MATTINGLY GLOBAL

In Dry Season, a person roams the desert in a self-contained Wearable Home that is equipped for the encroaching arctic, desert, and waterlogged tundra climates of the near future. Here, the Wearable Home shields the navigator from temperature change, blocks Ultraviolet rays, provides cooling, and stores purified water within the suit’s long pouches.

Dry Season was photographed in Death Valley, California: one of the largest saltpans in North America. This area was part of glacial Lake Manly during the Pleistocene era. It was filled with water nine meters deep, and is now the lowest basin on the North American continent at 86 meters (or 282.15 feet) below sea level. Today, its desertified remnants consist of formations of evaporite deposits, halite, and limestone. Death Valley holds the record for America's hottest daytime shade temperature (57°C or 134.6°F) and its driest location, receiving only 7.6 cm (3 inches) of rain annually.

Data covering approximately 30 glaciers around the world indicates that between the years 2004 and 2006 the average rate of melting and receding more than doubled from the previous two years. Important bodies of water subject to severe depletion include the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, Lake Victoria in Kenya, Lake Chapala in Mexico, and Lake Chad in Nigeria. Desertified lands currently cover 27.9% of China's landmass. Worldwide, areas of expanded desertification are affecting close to one third of the earth’s land surface. According to the United Nations, by 2010, 50 million people worldwide will be displaced because of rising sea levels, desertification, land degradation, exhausted aquifers, weather-induced flooding and storm surges, and unsanitary water conditions.