4 ms·
Acre-feet? Is this a satirical unit of measurement?!
by martinald 9y ago
Acre-feet? Is this a satirical unit of measurement?!
- DontGiveTwoFlux 9y agoThat's common for water allotment and agriculture. Western water rights allow for users to take only a limited number of acre-feet of water per year. If there is less water, then some people get bumped off the list for that year.
- Pyxl101 9y agoI'm not a farmer but I would guess it's serious. Land area is measured in acres, and the amount of water that crops need per growing cycle could be measured in feet, hence acre-feet. An acre-foot is the amount of water required to cover a one acre area in one foot of water, or about 1.2 million liters.
- tbabb 9y ago1 acre covered in 1 foot of water. Makes sense where farmland is measured in acres, and actually probably a bit easier to visualize than "10^6L"-- though I know what you mean.
- nbanks 9y agoHmm... so 10^6L would be 0.1 hectare meters. Acre feet may be easy to visualize, but it's hard to convert.
- secabeen 9y agoNope. A really common one. It's about the annual use of an american household, as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acre-foot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acre-foot
- dragonwriter 9y agoIt's serious, probably because reservoirs and inundated lands are conveniently measured in acres of area, and depths of water in feet. For water resources and agricultural uses, it's (given that you are using US Customary units for length and land area to start with) a reasonably sensible unit.
- dllthomas 9y agoIt's roughly 150 trillion cubic microfurlongs, if we want to get silly about it.