9 ms·

Draining California

126 points by ams1 12y ago

alsetmusic 12y ago
Link goes to site homepage, not an article. Can anyone provide a link to the intended story? edit: or maybe it's my browser, but I didn't check
- jmathai 12y ago
  I'm on an iPad and using Safari or Chrome renders the page fairly unusable. Scrolling doesn't work and it does appear to go to more of a home page than one specific to an article about California.
  - themodelplumber 12y ago
    I sympathize with the developers here--"one does not simply trust that parallax scrolling will work in iOS" but usually there's at least a workaround in place.
  - chillingeffect 12y ago
    I had to disable my flash blocker on firefox to make the page work. perhaps that's a clue. it did look pretty decent once I did that. It took me a while to realize the page was broken in the first place though
  - azinman2 12y ago
    On my iPhone I couldn't see anythjng really. That is one not mobile friendly side
themodelplumber 12y ago
I live right by a California reservoir that has been heavily drawn down. You can walk right out to the middle of it (dodging a couple areas where there is still water). It freaks people out, but I guess they don't get that this particular water isn't really ours anyway (no water rights, only recreation rights) and as the article touches on, reservoirs are drawn down during times like these anyway. Still, looking at all the barrenness, I really look forward to the next time it floods way over into the parking lots like it did a couple of years ago.
sytelus 12y ago
Are there any actual water shortage for normal folks in residential places? For example, do you still have 24 hr water available in your apartments? Is water from tap usually drinkable? These drought stuff is pretty scary but I haven't yet heard if normal (non agriculture) folks getting hurt yet.
- pkaye 12y ago
  No water shortage except for small settlements that don't a well defined water rights and agreements. Mostly cities are asking us to cut back on watering our lawns and our rates have gone up a little. We for example got rid of the lawn in our back yard. We plan to grow a flower and vegetable garden when things improve.
- viscanti 12y ago
  It's not noticeable in SF. Water is available 24 hours a day. If it wasn't for the news reports we'd never know.
- themodelplumber 12y ago
  So far, all of the lawns on our street are yellow. My neighbor just dug up his lawn, re-landscaped the dirt, and plans to try grass again next year. My church got a polite note from a neighbor informing us that our sprinklers were sprinkling the sidewalks some of the time (glad they said something). I think all of us take more notice now when non-residential entities are overusing or possibly wasting water. We also use less bathwater at home for our kids and spend less time in the shower. It doesn't really feel so bad for us non-agricultural folks at this point. I once met a retired government employee in the desert in Utah, and we talked a bit about water and droughts before he said, "things would have to get really, really, REALLY bad before you couldn't get tap water on demand anymore, even in a desert like this." Listening to his experience I realized that he had the benefit of some experience that I didn't. Not that it makes a draught feel any better. And the wildfires that make your city smell like a campground for days at a time don't help either. :-)
- ghshephard 12y ago
  Long, Long before there was any shortage of drinking water, the various water authorities would simply increase the prices of water to levels which reduce residential usage. The problem in California isn't lack of water for individual use (for the most part, there are a few small communities that are having to truck in water), it's the impact on Agriculture, which is hugely important to the economy of California, and our general food security. If you were wondering why there aren't more water restrictions for individuals, (Like leaning on people hard to take shorter shower, or use low-flush toilets, or ultra-low-flush toilets) - here's why: Changes to individual use will only have a small impact on our water use - 80% is used for agriculture. Individual restricting use by 20% will only have a 4% impact on overall water use. With that said, there is a lot of room for California to transition to a "Desert Water Existance" In 2011, the average californian used about 326 gallons/day of water. With water restriction, that can, with a little bit of expense, and changes in landscaping (no green lawns), be brought down to 150 gallons/day, and with a bit more expense (typically around the toilet), be brought down to 100 gallons/day with some lifestyle changes (typically shorter showers). On the flip side, California almonds use 1.1 trillion gallons of water each year. That one crop uses enough water to support a population of about 30 million people @ 100 gallons a day. For individual water use, though - a lot of the California population is right beside the ocean. Desalination costs about $0.75/cubic meter (264 gallons) based on recent Singapore Desalination plant deployments. If we didn't want a lifestyle change, then 329 gallons / day * 30 days / 264 gallons * 0.75 = about $28 to generate the water needed to maintain our lavish California lifestyle (add some more for distribution, which is reasonable for coastal cities without distance or elevation for pumping. This only works for individuals though - Agriculture needs cheap water to be sustainable, and much of the farmland is too far away from the coast (or too high), too make for economical distribution.
sparkman55 12y ago
It's not clear from the (beautiful!) article, but 4 times as much water goes to agricultural use than to municipal use in California. People won't die of thirst in California, but crops aren't doing as well. In particular, orchards spread through much of California's central valley. These are perennial plants (trees or vines), living decades in some cases. If you've mortgaged the farm to plant acres of fruit or nut trees, you're not going to let them die in a drought. You'll fight hard for any running water you can get your hands on, and then you'll dig wells and suck as much water out of the ground as your trees need. Groundwater has been (uncharacteristically!) unregulated in California, so aggressive ranchers or farmers can draw down the water table, threatening their neighbors' wells and causing a 'tragedy of the commons' situation and a race to drill. Sucking all that water out of the ground has all sorts of environmental concerns - as a result, California just passed laws to become the last western state to regulate groundwater usage.
- rodgerd 12y ago
  > People won't die of thirst in California, but crops aren't doing as well. Who has the bigger lobby group?
- deleted 12y ago
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  - deleted 12y ago
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ChuckMcM 12y ago
That gives a great picture of the current situation. I've spent many weekends camping up around the reservoirs and it is pretty dry. And further south, the monsoonal rains from the hurricanes are causing floods. I heard an interesting question asking why they can ship oil from North Dakota to Richmond CA to be refined but can't ship water. No doubt when water hits $100/barrel it will become profitable to ship it here by train.
- ghshephard 12y ago
  1 Barrel = 42 Gallons. It costs $0.75/cubic meter (264 Gallons) to desalinate water based on recent desalination plant technology in Singapore. If we switch to desalination, it will cost about $0.12/Barrel to generate water. Distribution will, of course, dwarf that cost, but production of water is cheap. We just use ridiculous amounts of it, and it's energy expensive to distribute it if you can't take advantage of gravity.
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    It's probably what you meant by "We just use ridiculous amounts of it" but I expect that most farms could not continue to operate while paying $0.12 per barrel.
    - ghshephard 12y ago
      Most Farms stop being economical north of $2000 per acre foot. (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-24/california-water-prices-soar-for-farmers-as-drought-grows.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-24/california-water-pr...). There are 326,000 gallons in an acre-foot. So, Most Farms can't pay much more than 2000/326000, = $0.006/Gallon. $0.75/cubic meter = .75 / 264 = $0.002/Gallon. It's within range - but, once again, it's not the cost of generation, but the cost of distribution that gets expensive. The Sierra Nevada has the advantage of all that potential energy from its altitude. http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/science/in-talk-of-solar-desalination-theres-a-salty-elephant-in-the-room.html http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/science/in-talk-of-solar-des... - Saltwater reclamation from the ocean in Carlsbad using Reverse Osmosis will cost about $2000/acre foot. EDIT: For runoff water from farms, there is a cheaper solution http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/California-drought-Solar-desalination-plant-5326024.php http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/California-drought-Sol... "His solar desalination plant produces water that costs about a quarter of what more conventionally desalinated water costs: $450 an acre-foot versus $2,000 an acre-foot." Of course, the elephant in the room is always - what do you do with the components you've removed from the runoff water. They are pretty toxic.
bryanlarsen 12y ago
We live in Ottawa, Canada. Last year we had a very dry summer, so the city sent out notices asking people to please water their lawns regularly. The Ottawa River is a major river, Ottawa is the only major user of its water, and doesn't really make a dent in the flow, especially since we put our wastewater back into the Ottawa (after treatment, mostly). They had no concern about water security, but they did have a concern about fires. There were a couple of cases where dry lawns made it easier for fires to jump from one property to another, so they sent out the notice.
- blahedo 12y ago
  The Great Lakes region is a whole other thing. In fifty or a hundred years, it's cities like Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland, Ottawa, and even Detroit that will be booming---because they will still have bountiful access to clean freshwater.
  - jonknee 12y ago
    Unless we keep pumping in fertilizer and the water becomes a toxic soup... http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/toxic-algae-blooms-persist-lake-erie-experts-say-n172466 http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/toxic-algae-bloom...
  - huherto 12y ago
    This is why I think Detroit is in a better position than most people think. Just give the city back to nature and it will flourish again.
- snowwindwaves 12y ago
  I lived in Ottawa in the 90's and they definitely had restrictions on when you could water your lawn then. Maybe it was a water delivery limit as opposed to a water source limit. Although i do remember the river would get so low you could walk quite far out to the middle and Champlain rapids were more like a shallow stream
snomad 12y ago
Many people will often say agricultural uses 80% of the water. This is not the whole picture. "Nature provides about 200 million acre-feet of precipitation to California in average years. Of this total, 65% is lost through evaporation and transpiration by trees and other plants. The remaining 35% stays in the state’s system as runoff. More than 30% of this runoff flows out to the Pacific Ocean or other salt sinks. The rest is used by agricultural, urban, and environmental purposes. About 75% of the annual precipitation falls north of Sacramento, while more than 75% of the demand for water is south of the capital city. Most of the rain and snowfall occurs between October and April, while demand is highest during the hot and dry summer months" [1] While evaporation is part of the natural process, I question how much is self-inflicted by transporting / storing large volumes of water where evaporation will occur at high rates. Further, while residential may only use around 10% of the roughly 49 million square feet allocated for human use, we really should consider the evaporation costs incurred from transporting part of the base 200 million square feet down south. I have been unable to find a reliable source that measures the evaporation from the 16 aqueducts [2], let alone the 100s of reservoirs [3]. Please share if you have one. [1] - http://www.acwa.com/content/california-water-series/californias-water-california-water-systems http://www.acwa.com/content/california-water-series/californ... [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aqueducts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aqueducts [3] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dams_and_reservoirs_in_California http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dams_and_reservoirs_in_...
- x86_64Ubuntu 12y ago
  What does evaporation have to do with anything? When people are talking about the drought and competition of water, they are talking about the net water available, not what is lost through natural processes.
  - markvdb 12y ago
    Man has created big surfaces of water in hot dry areas. A significant portion evaporates before it can be used...
    - 12y ago
harywilke 12y ago
saw these photos. looks dreadful. http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/09/dramatic-photos-of-californias-historic-drought/100804/ http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/09/dramatic-photos-o...
- NDizzle 12y ago
  I am picking up a quad copter tomorrow. I plan to go to Oroville and get some footage from the lake area as soon as I'm comfortable with it.
gregwebs 12y ago
What a great visualization! It is sad though to click on the other tab "When Snows Fall" and see the central valley referred to as an "inhabited desert". We continually try to give the impression that we turned the Central Valley from desert into farmland, when the opposite is the case: we turned what was a winter wetlands into a desert. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Valley_Grasslands_State_Park http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Valley_Grasslands_State_P...
- Roboprog 12y ago
  As somebody who has lived all but about 4 years of his life in the Central Valley, it sure feels like a desert in the summer time (and late spring, and early fall) any where there is not active irrigation. True, it's not Mojave or the Sahara, but it's pretty hot and dry. Savanna a la Africa is not a bad comparison.
palderson 12y ago
Big problems, create big opportunities. Some of the developments that may occur to address this issue over the next 10+ years: - Development of a robust water entitlement exchange - Decoupling a water right from the land to create a more tradable asset - Regulation change to allow for water leases - A shift away from growing 'thirsty' crops in drought-prone regions - Decentralization of water treatment plants to reduce distribution costs - Increased use of grey and recycled water in the home - Pricing changes based on its use within high water use industries - Increased use of GM crops designed to require less water - State-sponsored overseas farming specifically for US import of thirsty crops - Less water exporting occurring. I.e. selling thirsty crops to China And I'm sure, much, much more.
- aurelian 12y ago
  Why would state sponsored overseas farming of thirsty crops for US import be desirable?
  - palderson 12y ago
    It's something that's occurring elsewhere in the world on the basis of a) a population wanting to consume a thirsty crop such as rice, which requires water they don't have; and, b) not wanting to give up its food security and rely on traditional imports. I don't know that this is something the US has done but the motivators noted above still stand.
ilaksh 12y ago
Strategies like desalination (see San Diego's new huge desalination project), hydroponics/aquaponics and (ultra)local production can make these problems more manageable. Instead of giant agricultural fields that are open to evaporation, hydroponic or aquaponics inside of greenhouses could vastly reduce water usage. Instead of huge farms or corporations producing food tens or hundreds of miles away from where it is eaten, community/neighborhood or even household food production could be an alternative. This would be more efficient and save on energy and other costs needed for transporting and retailing food. These things will probably become more economically viable and popular as solar becomes a consumer-level reality. As in, people are buying solar kits at Walmart or Home Depot regularly. The prices are almost already there. Pretty sure that a lot of this is related to network effects and trends. The neighborhood urban hydroponic farming thing becomes more economically viable as it becomes more popular, simply because more people are cooperating (via the market) in order to make that more convenient. Of course, there is a limit to how much food we can produce locally. Right now, even if we converted every Target into an urban farm, and every home and apartment used advanced technology to pull in solar energy efficiently and dedicated a full 1/3 of its space to hydroponic or aquaponic produce, we might only be able to supply a fraction of our food needs that way. What fraction that would be, 10%, 20% or 50%, not sure. But I feel like that more local production is going to be more efficient and robust in the end, and more and more popular as we start to distribute production technologies more evenly.
- aurelian 12y ago
  Why do you think local food production would be more efficient? My gardening projects have been case studies in inefficiency.
  - ilaksh 12y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_food http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_food When I think of local food production personally I am envisioning taking advantage of the latest in technology in order to create the most efficient and self-sufficient process possible. For now that means things like hydroponics and aquaponics. In the future that could be more sophisticated biotechnology or nanotechnology of some sort. Its sort of a localization and distribution mindset. One basic idea is that if food is produced far away, as it is often produced hundred or thousands of miles away, some energy must be expended to transport it. So if a tomato grows hydroponically in the corner of the room, the distance it needs to travel to my mouth in order for me to eat it may be say 10 feet. If it grows in the ground 500 miles away, it would need to travel 500 miles (plus 10 feet). Certainly the energy required to move a tomato 500 miles is greater than zero. Add that up for everything you eat, and there is a fair amount of inefficiency. Another idea is that producing food or other needs locally means less dependence on more centralized control and distribution systems, which means more security for individuals and families. Its sort of like extending the idea of solar panels and 3d printing. If we can get our own energy from the sun, and print out our own products, why do we have to go to the store to buy food that was grown 400 or 4000 miles away?
ikawe 12y ago
I've been scraping aqueduct sensor levels from the LA Aqueduct for a couple of years - aggregating the data here: http://api.thirsty.la/ http://api.thirsty.la/ Please let me know if you find it useful!
Roboprog 12y ago
Irony: it has been horribly dry this year. However, it just started raining (with a huge side of lightening) a few minutes ago in western El Dorado county, a few miles from Folsom reservoir, where I live. Normally we don't get rain until October or later. Remains to be seen if it does more than slicken the sidewalk, though.

126 points by ams1 12y ago

Link goes to site homepage, not an article. Can anyone provide a link to the intended story? edit: or maybe it's my browser, but I didn't check

jmathai 12y ago
I'm on an iPad and using Safari or Chrome renders the page fairly unusable. Scrolling doesn't work and it does appear to go to more of a home page than one specific to an article about California.
- themodelplumber 12y ago
  I sympathize with the developers here--"one does not simply trust that parallax scrolling will work in iOS" but usually there's at least a workaround in place.
- chillingeffect 12y ago
  I had to disable my flash blocker on firefox to make the page work. perhaps that's a clue. it did look pretty decent once I did that. It took me a while to realize the page was broken in the first place though
- azinman2 12y ago
  On my iPhone I couldn't see anythjng really. That is one not mobile friendly side

themodelplumber 12y ago

I live right by a California reservoir that has been heavily drawn down. You can walk right out to the middle of it (dodging a couple areas where there is still water). It freaks people out, but I guess they don't get that this particular water isn't really ours anyway (no water rights, only recreation rights) and as the article touches on, reservoirs are drawn down during times like these anyway. Still, looking at all the barrenness, I really look forward to the next time it floods way over into the parking lots like it did a couple of years ago.

sytelus 12y ago

Are there any actual water shortage for normal folks in residential places? For example, do you still have 24 hr water available in your apartments? Is water from tap usually drinkable? These drought stuff is pretty scary but I haven't yet heard if normal (non agriculture) folks getting hurt yet.

pkaye 12y ago
No water shortage except for small settlements that don't a well defined water rights and agreements. Mostly cities are asking us to cut back on watering our lawns and our rates have gone up a little. We for example got rid of the lawn in our back yard. We plan to grow a flower and vegetable garden when things improve.
viscanti 12y ago
It's not noticeable in SF. Water is available 24 hours a day. If it wasn't for the news reports we'd never know.
themodelplumber 12y ago
So far, all of the lawns on our street are yellow. My neighbor just dug up his lawn, re-landscaped the dirt, and plans to try grass again next year. My church got a polite note from a neighbor informing us that our sprinklers were sprinkling the sidewalks some of the time (glad they said something). I think all of us take more notice now when non-residential entities are overusing or possibly wasting water. We also use less bathwater at home for our kids and spend less time in the shower. It doesn't really feel so bad for us non-agricultural folks at this point. I once met a retired government employee in the desert in Utah, and we talked a bit about water and droughts before he said, "things would have to get really, really, REALLY bad before you couldn't get tap water on demand anymore, even in a desert like this." Listening to his experience I realized that he had the benefit of some experience that I didn't. Not that it makes a draught feel any better. And the wildfires that make your city smell like a campground for days at a time don't help either. :-)
ghshephard 12y ago
Long, Long before there was any shortage of drinking water, the various water authorities would simply increase the prices of water to levels which reduce residential usage. The problem in California isn't lack of water for individual use (for the most part, there are a few small communities that are having to truck in water), it's the impact on Agriculture, which is hugely important to the economy of California, and our general food security. If you were wondering why there aren't more water restrictions for individuals, (Like leaning on people hard to take shorter shower, or use low-flush toilets, or ultra-low-flush toilets) - here's why: Changes to individual use will only have a small impact on our water use - 80% is used for agriculture. Individual restricting use by 20% will only have a 4% impact on overall water use. With that said, there is a lot of room for California to transition to a "Desert Water Existance" In 2011, the average californian used about 326 gallons/day of water. With water restriction, that can, with a little bit of expense, and changes in landscaping (no green lawns), be brought down to 150 gallons/day, and with a bit more expense (typically around the toilet), be brought down to 100 gallons/day with some lifestyle changes (typically shorter showers). On the flip side, California almonds use 1.1 trillion gallons of water each year. That one crop uses enough water to support a population of about 30 million people @ 100 gallons a day. For individual water use, though - a lot of the California population is right beside the ocean. Desalination costs about $0.75/cubic meter (264 gallons) based on recent Singapore Desalination plant deployments. If we didn't want a lifestyle change, then 329 gallons / day * 30 days / 264 gallons * 0.75 = about $28 to generate the water needed to maintain our lavish California lifestyle (add some more for distribution, which is reasonable for coastal cities without distance or elevation for pumping. This only works for individuals though - Agriculture needs cheap water to be sustainable, and much of the farmland is too far away from the coast (or too high), too make for economical distribution.

sparkman55 12y ago

It's not clear from the (beautiful!) article, but 4 times as much water goes to agricultural use than to municipal use in California. People won't die of thirst in California, but crops aren't doing as well. In particular, orchards spread through much of California's central valley. These are perennial plants (trees or vines), living decades in some cases. If you've mortgaged the farm to plant acres of fruit or nut trees, you're not going to let them die in a drought. You'll fight hard for any running water you can get your hands on, and then you'll dig wells and suck as much water out of the ground as your trees need. Groundwater has been (uncharacteristically!) unregulated in California, so aggressive ranchers or farmers can draw down the water table, threatening their neighbors' wells and causing a 'tragedy of the commons' situation and a race to drill. Sucking all that water out of the ground has all sorts of environmental concerns - as a result, California just passed laws to become the last western state to regulate groundwater usage.

rodgerd 12y ago
> People won't die of thirst in California, but crops aren't doing as well. Who has the bigger lobby group?
deleted 12y ago
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- deleted 12y ago
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ChuckMcM 12y ago

That gives a great picture of the current situation. I've spent many weekends camping up around the reservoirs and it is pretty dry. And further south, the monsoonal rains from the hurricanes are causing floods. I heard an interesting question asking why they can ship oil from North Dakota to Richmond CA to be refined but can't ship water. No doubt when water hits $100/barrel it will become profitable to ship it here by train.

ghshephard 12y ago
1 Barrel = 42 Gallons. It costs $0.75/cubic meter (264 Gallons) to desalinate water based on recent desalination plant technology in Singapore. If we switch to desalination, it will cost about $0.12/Barrel to generate water. Distribution will, of course, dwarf that cost, but production of water is cheap. We just use ridiculous amounts of it, and it's energy expensive to distribute it if you can't take advantage of gravity.
- seanflyon 12y ago
  It's probably what you meant by "We just use ridiculous amounts of it" but I expect that most farms could not continue to operate while paying $0.12 per barrel.
  - ghshephard 12y ago
    Most Farms stop being economical north of $2000 per acre foot. (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-24/california-water-prices-soar-for-farmers-as-drought-grows.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-24/california-water-pr...). There are 326,000 gallons in an acre-foot. So, Most Farms can't pay much more than 2000/326000, = $0.006/Gallon. $0.75/cubic meter = .75 / 264 = $0.002/Gallon. It's within range - but, once again, it's not the cost of generation, but the cost of distribution that gets expensive. The Sierra Nevada has the advantage of all that potential energy from its altitude. http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/science/in-talk-of-solar-desalination-theres-a-salty-elephant-in-the-room.html http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/science/in-talk-of-solar-des... - Saltwater reclamation from the ocean in Carlsbad using Reverse Osmosis will cost about $2000/acre foot. EDIT: For runoff water from farms, there is a cheaper solution http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/California-drought-Solar-desalination-plant-5326024.php http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/California-drought-Sol... "His solar desalination plant produces water that costs about a quarter of what more conventionally desalinated water costs: $450 an acre-foot versus $2,000 an acre-foot." Of course, the elephant in the room is always - what do you do with the components you've removed from the runoff water. They are pretty toxic.

bryanlarsen 12y ago

We live in Ottawa, Canada. Last year we had a very dry summer, so the city sent out notices asking people to please water their lawns regularly. The Ottawa River is a major river, Ottawa is the only major user of its water, and doesn't really make a dent in the flow, especially since we put our wastewater back into the Ottawa (after treatment, mostly). They had no concern about water security, but they did have a concern about fires. There were a couple of cases where dry lawns made it easier for fires to jump from one property to another, so they sent out the notice.

blahedo 12y ago
The Great Lakes region is a whole other thing. In fifty or a hundred years, it's cities like Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland, Ottawa, and even Detroit that will be booming---because they will still have bountiful access to clean freshwater.
- jonknee 12y ago
  Unless we keep pumping in fertilizer and the water becomes a toxic soup... http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/toxic-algae-blooms-persist-lake-erie-experts-say-n172466 http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/toxic-algae-bloom...
- huherto 12y ago
  This is why I think Detroit is in a better position than most people think. Just give the city back to nature and it will flourish again.
snowwindwaves 12y ago
I lived in Ottawa in the 90's and they definitely had restrictions on when you could water your lawn then. Maybe it was a water delivery limit as opposed to a water source limit. Although i do remember the river would get so low you could walk quite far out to the middle and Champlain rapids were more like a shallow stream

snomad 12y ago

Many people will often say agricultural uses 80% of the water. This is not the whole picture. "Nature provides about 200 million acre-feet of precipitation to California in average years. Of this total, 65% is lost through evaporation and transpiration by trees and other plants. The remaining 35% stays in the state’s system as runoff. More than 30% of this runoff flows out to the Pacific Ocean or other salt sinks. The rest is used by agricultural, urban, and environmental purposes. About 75% of the annual precipitation falls north of Sacramento, while more than 75% of the demand for water is south of the capital city. Most of the rain and snowfall occurs between October and April, while demand is highest during the hot and dry summer months" [1] While evaporation is part of the natural process, I question how much is self-inflicted by transporting / storing large volumes of water where evaporation will occur at high rates. Further, while residential may only use around 10% of the roughly 49 million square feet allocated for human use, we really should consider the evaporation costs incurred from transporting part of the base 200 million square feet down south. I have been unable to find a reliable source that measures the evaporation from the 16 aqueducts [2], let alone the 100s of reservoirs [3]. Please share if you have one. [1] - http://www.acwa.com/content/california-water-series/californias-water-california-water-systems http://www.acwa.com/content/california-water-series/californ... [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aqueducts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aqueducts [3] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dams_and_reservoirs_in_California http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dams_and_reservoirs_in_...

x86_64Ubuntu 12y ago
What does evaporation have to do with anything? When people are talking about the drought and competition of water, they are talking about the net water available, not what is lost through natural processes.
- markvdb 12y ago
  Man has created big surfaces of water in hot dry areas. A significant portion evaporates before it can be used...
  - 12y ago

harywilke 12y ago

saw these photos. looks dreadful. http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/09/dramatic-photos-of-californias-historic-drought/100804/ http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/09/dramatic-photos-o...

NDizzle 12y ago
I am picking up a quad copter tomorrow. I plan to go to Oroville and get some footage from the lake area as soon as I'm comfortable with it.

gregwebs 12y ago

What a great visualization! It is sad though to click on the other tab "When Snows Fall" and see the central valley referred to as an "inhabited desert". We continually try to give the impression that we turned the Central Valley from desert into farmland, when the opposite is the case: we turned what was a winter wetlands into a desert. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Valley_Grasslands_State_Park http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Valley_Grasslands_State_P...

Roboprog 12y ago
As somebody who has lived all but about 4 years of his life in the Central Valley, it sure feels like a desert in the summer time (and late spring, and early fall) any where there is not active irrigation. True, it's not Mojave or the Sahara, but it's pretty hot and dry. Savanna a la Africa is not a bad comparison.

palderson 12y ago

Big problems, create big opportunities. Some of the developments that may occur to address this issue over the next 10+ years: - Development of a robust water entitlement exchange - Decoupling a water right from the land to create a more tradable asset - Regulation change to allow for water leases - A shift away from growing 'thirsty' crops in drought-prone regions - Decentralization of water treatment plants to reduce distribution costs - Increased use of grey and recycled water in the home - Pricing changes based on its use within high water use industries - Increased use of GM crops designed to require less water - State-sponsored overseas farming specifically for US import of thirsty crops - Less water exporting occurring. I.e. selling thirsty crops to China And I'm sure, much, much more.

aurelian 12y ago
Why would state sponsored overseas farming of thirsty crops for US import be desirable?
- palderson 12y ago
  It's something that's occurring elsewhere in the world on the basis of a) a population wanting to consume a thirsty crop such as rice, which requires water they don't have; and, b) not wanting to give up its food security and rely on traditional imports. I don't know that this is something the US has done but the motivators noted above still stand.

ilaksh 12y ago

Strategies like desalination (see San Diego's new huge desalination project), hydroponics/aquaponics and (ultra)local production can make these problems more manageable. Instead of giant agricultural fields that are open to evaporation, hydroponic or aquaponics inside of greenhouses could vastly reduce water usage. Instead of huge farms or corporations producing food tens or hundreds of miles away from where it is eaten, community/neighborhood or even household food production could be an alternative. This would be more efficient and save on energy and other costs needed for transporting and retailing food. These things will probably become more economically viable and popular as solar becomes a consumer-level reality. As in, people are buying solar kits at Walmart or Home Depot regularly. The prices are almost already there. Pretty sure that a lot of this is related to network effects and trends. The neighborhood urban hydroponic farming thing becomes more economically viable as it becomes more popular, simply because more people are cooperating (via the market) in order to make that more convenient. Of course, there is a limit to how much food we can produce locally. Right now, even if we converted every Target into an urban farm, and every home and apartment used advanced technology to pull in solar energy efficiently and dedicated a full 1/3 of its space to hydroponic or aquaponic produce, we might only be able to supply a fraction of our food needs that way. What fraction that would be, 10%, 20% or 50%, not sure. But I feel like that more local production is going to be more efficient and robust in the end, and more and more popular as we start to distribute production technologies more evenly.

aurelian 12y ago
Why do you think local food production would be more efficient? My gardening projects have been case studies in inefficiency.
- ilaksh 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_food http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_food When I think of local food production personally I am envisioning taking advantage of the latest in technology in order to create the most efficient and self-sufficient process possible. For now that means things like hydroponics and aquaponics. In the future that could be more sophisticated biotechnology or nanotechnology of some sort. Its sort of a localization and distribution mindset. One basic idea is that if food is produced far away, as it is often produced hundred or thousands of miles away, some energy must be expended to transport it. So if a tomato grows hydroponically in the corner of the room, the distance it needs to travel to my mouth in order for me to eat it may be say 10 feet. If it grows in the ground 500 miles away, it would need to travel 500 miles (plus 10 feet). Certainly the energy required to move a tomato 500 miles is greater than zero. Add that up for everything you eat, and there is a fair amount of inefficiency. Another idea is that producing food or other needs locally means less dependence on more centralized control and distribution systems, which means more security for individuals and families. Its sort of like extending the idea of solar panels and 3d printing. If we can get our own energy from the sun, and print out our own products, why do we have to go to the store to buy food that was grown 400 or 4000 miles away?

ikawe 12y ago

I've been scraping aqueduct sensor levels from the LA Aqueduct for a couple of years - aggregating the data here: http://api.thirsty.la/ http://api.thirsty.la/ Please let me know if you find it useful!

Roboprog 12y ago

Irony: it has been horribly dry this year. However, it just started raining (with a huge side of lightening) a few minutes ago in western El Dorado county, a few miles from Folsom reservoir, where I live. Normally we don't get rain until October or later. Remains to be seen if it does more than slicken the sidewalk, though.