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I've never really thought about it, do the fields have a drainage system to get rid of the water? I understand the water's reason is flushing out insects and mi
by luckylion 4y ago
I've never really thought about it, do the fields have a drainage system to get rid of the water? I understand the water's reason is flushing out insects and mice, right?
If they don't pump it out and back into a river, and it just slowly seeps into the ground, that's exactly what the article is proposing, isn't it? Just with the added benefit of keeping the rice plants uneaten.
- jeffbee 4y agoThe way it is practiced in Northern California, about half of the water applied is actually consumed the way you think of the word "consumed": in evaporation and transpiration. The rest either drains off the edge of the field back into the river, or percolates into the ground. When northern California weirs are flowing and the "bypass" fields of the Sacramento are flooded, much of that recharges the groundwater, exactly the storm capture that you'd want. But what the article is discussing are waterworks that would pump smaller rivers like the Russian dry, in any year. They think any water that reaches the Pacific is waste, to hell with fish.