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No reason to single out California farmers, all of the aquifers in the western United States have seen serious depletion. Rain water reclamation will help but i

No reason to single out California farmers, all of the aquifers in the western United States have seen serious depletion. Rain water reclamation will help but it seriously jeopardizes the wildlife that depend on streams and tributaries. The wild card is what happens given the additional atmospheric water capacity in a warmer climate. The more aggressive monsoons is one example that seems will only get worse.

gpt5 5y ago
Yeah, why focus on farming. It's not like farming water use is 4X all urban usage combined. Oh wait...
- ChuckMcM 5y ago
  There was a really great article on how the nut farmers in California's central valley are so dependent on the infrastructure (ready access to subcontractors) that they fail miserably when they try to setup farms in places that are water "rich" like the Carolinas. That was pretty surprising to me.
- Cederfjard 5y ago
  I read that not as ”no reason to single out […] farmers”, but as ”no reason to single out California farmers”.
- mdavis6890 5y ago
  I think he is saying, why single out California farmers, when farmers in other states are using up their aquifers as well.
praptak 5y ago
"The wild card is what happens given the additional atmospheric water capacity in a warmer climate." The recent catastrophic floods in Europe add some data points to the pessimistic side. The additional capacity materialised as torrential rains which cause flash floods but don't help that much with aquifers.
- corty 5y ago
  Maybe. Germany had a very rainy summer this year, and the flash floods were just single-day events in a long period of cloudy, rainy but noncatastrophic weather. The regular, noncatastrophic rain actually made up for most of the draught in the last three summers. So I would be hesitant to interpret this data either way.
- ChuckMcM 5y ago
  Precisely correct. I got into a fascinating discussion with a Hydrologist from UC Davis who was studying water transport (the whole evaporate -> rain -> run off cycle) and their thesis was that mechanisms that entrap water (reservoirs) that are based on gradual rainfall over months, are not the ideal water catchment solution for water that comes sporadically in very large dumps. The Mayan's had an extensive network of cisterns[1] that captured water for later use when it wasn't raining heavily. Anyway, the practical upshot of that is that different infrastructures do better at capturing and releasing water and they have to be tuned to the water transport mechanism for optimum effect. Changes in the climate that change water transport are likely to invalidate existing infrastructure "design rules" and existing infrastructure built for a different water transport cycle will be less effective resulting in less net water delivery. Wild right? [1] https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/technology-rainwater-survival-maya/print/ https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/technology-rainwate...

gpt5 5y ago

Yeah, why focus on farming. It's not like farming water use is 4X all urban usage combined. Oh wait...

ChuckMcM 5y ago
There was a really great article on how the nut farmers in California's central valley are so dependent on the infrastructure (ready access to subcontractors) that they fail miserably when they try to setup farms in places that are water "rich" like the Carolinas. That was pretty surprising to me.
Cederfjard 5y ago
I read that not as ”no reason to single out […] farmers”, but as ”no reason to single out California farmers”.
mdavis6890 5y ago
I think he is saying, why single out California farmers, when farmers in other states are using up their aquifers as well.

praptak 5y ago

"The wild card is what happens given the additional atmospheric water capacity in a warmer climate." The recent catastrophic floods in Europe add some data points to the pessimistic side. The additional capacity materialised as torrential rains which cause flash floods but don't help that much with aquifers.

corty 5y ago
Maybe. Germany had a very rainy summer this year, and the flash floods were just single-day events in a long period of cloudy, rainy but noncatastrophic weather. The regular, noncatastrophic rain actually made up for most of the draught in the last three summers. So I would be hesitant to interpret this data either way.
ChuckMcM 5y ago
Precisely correct. I got into a fascinating discussion with a Hydrologist from UC Davis who was studying water transport (the whole evaporate -> rain -> run off cycle) and their thesis was that mechanisms that entrap water (reservoirs) that are based on gradual rainfall over months, are not the ideal water catchment solution for water that comes sporadically in very large dumps. The Mayan's had an extensive network of cisterns[1] that captured water for later use when it wasn't raining heavily. Anyway, the practical upshot of that is that different infrastructures do better at capturing and releasing water and they have to be tuned to the water transport mechanism for optimum effect. Changes in the climate that change water transport are likely to invalidate existing infrastructure "design rules" and existing infrastructure built for a different water transport cycle will be less effective resulting in less net water delivery. Wild right? [1] https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/technology-rainwater-survival-maya/print/ https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/technology-rainwate...