Increasing the price of water would of course work. There is nothing inherently special about water. What is special is how water has been underpriced for so lo

Increasing the price of water would of course work. There is nothing inherently special about water. What is special is how water has been underpriced for so long as well as the use of aquifers through wells temporarily 'increasing the supply' until they run out. Banning almonds, pistachos, walnut crops etc... is really just an indirect way of increasing the price of water for farmers. I've heard other suggestions to mandate more conservative water practices aka drip irrigation and ban water hungry crops and sure that kinda works -- but this is exactly what higher prices is supposed to fix already. There is no magical solution to the now permanent decreased water per year, it's not a 'temporary drought' anymore. Eventually the price of water will be set back to normal either through dollar cost or with lottery random shortages as the agency is currently forced to do.