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For further reading on aquifers I highly recommend https://www.edwardsaquifer.net https://www.edwardsaquifer.net It's run by a scientist in Texas and has an am

by Dig1t 3y ago

For further reading on aquifers I highly recommend https://www.edwardsaquifer.net https://www.edwardsaquifer.net It's run by a scientist in Texas and has an amazing wealth of information on the aquifers of Texas. I never thought I would find a subject like this interesting until I read this guy's site. Texas has been managing aquifers for a long time, there's a rich history behind their management, and reading about this stuff has been the only way I've found to make geology interesting. Many of the lessons learned and policies employed in Texas likely would be very useful in California.

mech422 3y ago
Phoenix is the same way. They do a really good job managing water supplies - for aquifers in particular (PHX sits on top of an underground lake) they use huge 'ponds' to let the water soak back into the aquifer.
- hosh 3y ago
  We have to. Arizona is at the bottom of the water rights agreement among the states drawing from the Colorado River. I see a lot of water harvesting structures here, often in the form of parks and greenways.
  - genmud 3y ago
    That’s actually not true, IIRC per capita we are actually better off than California and Nevada. Edit: Just looked it up and california gets about 5 million acre feet (maf), AZ gets about 2.8maf and Nevada only gets 0.3maf. So per capita, AZ is doing pretty well allocation-wise.
    - hosh 3y ago
      When I said, “bottom of the water rights”, I mean that the other states has senior water rights, not allocation per capita. When there is not enough water, priority goes to those holding senior water rights. (Complicating this is that various tribal nations have water rights senior to the states, and it is only now affecting allocations)
    - SECProto 3y ago
      "The Water Knife" by Paolo Bacigalupi, though near-future speculative fiction, gives a pretty solid explanation of the issues. Junior rights don't matter much when there isn't enough water
  - mech422 3y ago
    Yeah - but PHX doesn't really rely on the Colorado as much as the rest of AZ. We also have the Salt and Verde rivers which is a luxury a lot of other parts of the state don't have... And we're back down to 1950s level of water usage due to less agriculture. Other parts of AZ don't have that reduction in usage, and have to try to do more with less
    - hosh 3y ago
      Fair enough. Even with the additional sources of water, it’s better to design civilization in a way that incorporates natural cycles. The Intel fab facility does a lot to reclaim water, ultimately pumping used water back into the aquifer. New construction, such as the light rail expansion has purposely-designed swales to also help with that. If anything, it’s because the ground water has been banked for years that it is mitigating the water restriction in effect in AZ last year. On the other hand, we have so much precipitation this past winter, that the dams along the Salt River are having daily releases now. If you’re living in Phoenix right now, you might notice the elevated humidity for this time of the year; we might have a monsoon season starting weeks early here.
      - mech422 3y ago
        Man - I miss the 'old style' monsoons with the huge lighting displays...When I first moved to PHX, I used to sit out on the patio everyday just to watch them..
- toss1 3y ago
  >> They do a really good job managing water supplies - for aquifers in particular Yes, except for some very bad deals allowing great tracts of land to be sold and leased at below-market rates to Saudi companies without charging or monitoring water use. They grow forage crops like alfalfa that are banned or restricted in Saudi because of excessive water requirements, and ship the crops back to their cattle there. It has made neighbors' wells run dry. They are effectively taking the water from the aquifer and shipping back to Saudi. For free. One of many articles here [0] (guess which political party made the deals). [0] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-stricken-arizona-fresh-scrutiny-of-saudi-arabia-owned-farms-water-use https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-stricken-ar...
  - mech422 3y ago
    That's not PHX though... PHX is lucky/planed well enough not to be in the same predicament a lot of the state is. We have 2 additional sources of water besides the colorado, our water consumption is down because of less argiculture, and the underground lake seems to be holding up pretty well. Granted, the rest of the state is constantly having to do more with less
    - triyambakam 3y ago
      > the underground lake seems to be holding up pretty well. Where can I read more about this? Searching for "Phoenix underground lake" doesn't bring up anything that seems related.
      - billbrown 3y ago
        I think "underground lake" is metaphorical. We have some good geology for our aquifer—it's called the Salt River Valley alluvial basin.[1] The Phoenix Active Management Area has a bunch of water storage[2]. I'd also direct you to the city's 2021 plan.[3] [1] https://new.azwater.gov/hydrology/groundwater-modeling/salt-river-valley-srv-regional-model https://new.azwater.gov/hydrology/groundwater-modeling/salt-... [2] https://waterbank.az.gov/water-storage https://waterbank.az.gov/water-storage [3] https://www.phoenix.gov/waterservicessite/Documents/2021%20City%20of%20Phoenix%20Water%20Resource%20Plan.pdf https://www.phoenix.gov/waterservicessite/Documents/2021%20C...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
EdJiang 3y ago
There's also this guy who purchased a plot of land in the middle of nowhere, West Texas who's trying to terraform it into a forest. No idea how feasible it is, but interesting to watch! https://www.youtube.com/@dustupstexas https://www.youtube.com/@dustupstexas
- aaron695 3y ago
  [dead]
- SCUSKU 3y ago
  Just subscribed! Very cool channel. Although his latest video outlining some of his experience with migrants in the desert is extremely heart wrenching. It's nice to see it from his perspective, as just another guy.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mariojv 3y ago
That's the aquifer that serves where I live, San Antonio, among other parts of the region. It's neat seeing the Edwards Aquifer mentioned here along with that site! I remember local news reporting on the aquifer level quite a bit throughout my life. Curious if other regions near major aquifers do the same thing. It really raises awareness about water management. The news publishes the "worst offending addresses" for water overuse occasionally, too. We had the worst drought in recent memory for the region last year, although this year seems to be starting to make up for that. The city's also diversified its water supply outside the aquifer in recent years, such as establishing the Vista Ridge Pipeline from less populated areas of Texas into San Antonio: https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2020/05/08/a-project-10-years-in-the-making-vista-ridge-pipeline-is-now-online/ https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2020/05/08/a-project-10-year... I imagine water infrastructure projects like this are only going to become more common as the climate changes in coming years. The massive aquifer recharge projects mentioned in the original article about California aquifers make me wonder if there's some way one could engineer a very large scale desalination project using natural resources. A project using geothermal resources for evaporative desalination could be interesting.
- icehawk 3y ago
  To expand on the second paragraph: It wasn't until I moved out of San Antonio, that I realized that you don't get a daily report in the local news as to how much water is in your local water supply.

by Dig1t 3y ago

mech422 3y ago

Phoenix is the same way. They do a really good job managing water supplies - for aquifers in particular (PHX sits on top of an underground lake) they use huge 'ponds' to let the water soak back into the aquifer.

hosh 3y ago
We have to. Arizona is at the bottom of the water rights agreement among the states drawing from the Colorado River. I see a lot of water harvesting structures here, often in the form of parks and greenways.
- genmud 3y ago
  That’s actually not true, IIRC per capita we are actually better off than California and Nevada. Edit: Just looked it up and california gets about 5 million acre feet (maf), AZ gets about 2.8maf and Nevada only gets 0.3maf. So per capita, AZ is doing pretty well allocation-wise.
  - hosh 3y ago
    When I said, “bottom of the water rights”, I mean that the other states has senior water rights, not allocation per capita. When there is not enough water, priority goes to those holding senior water rights. (Complicating this is that various tribal nations have water rights senior to the states, and it is only now affecting allocations)
  - SECProto 3y ago
    "The Water Knife" by Paolo Bacigalupi, though near-future speculative fiction, gives a pretty solid explanation of the issues. Junior rights don't matter much when there isn't enough water
- mech422 3y ago
  Yeah - but PHX doesn't really rely on the Colorado as much as the rest of AZ. We also have the Salt and Verde rivers which is a luxury a lot of other parts of the state don't have... And we're back down to 1950s level of water usage due to less agriculture. Other parts of AZ don't have that reduction in usage, and have to try to do more with less
  - hosh 3y ago
    Fair enough. Even with the additional sources of water, it’s better to design civilization in a way that incorporates natural cycles. The Intel fab facility does a lot to reclaim water, ultimately pumping used water back into the aquifer. New construction, such as the light rail expansion has purposely-designed swales to also help with that. If anything, it’s because the ground water has been banked for years that it is mitigating the water restriction in effect in AZ last year. On the other hand, we have so much precipitation this past winter, that the dams along the Salt River are having daily releases now. If you’re living in Phoenix right now, you might notice the elevated humidity for this time of the year; we might have a monsoon season starting weeks early here.
    - mech422 3y ago
      Man - I miss the 'old style' monsoons with the huge lighting displays...When I first moved to PHX, I used to sit out on the patio everyday just to watch them..
toss1 3y ago
>> They do a really good job managing water supplies - for aquifers in particular Yes, except for some very bad deals allowing great tracts of land to be sold and leased at below-market rates to Saudi companies without charging or monitoring water use. They grow forage crops like alfalfa that are banned or restricted in Saudi because of excessive water requirements, and ship the crops back to their cattle there. It has made neighbors' wells run dry. They are effectively taking the water from the aquifer and shipping back to Saudi. For free. One of many articles here [0] (guess which political party made the deals). [0] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-stricken-arizona-fresh-scrutiny-of-saudi-arabia-owned-farms-water-use https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-stricken-ar...
- mech422 3y ago
  That's not PHX though... PHX is lucky/planed well enough not to be in the same predicament a lot of the state is. We have 2 additional sources of water besides the colorado, our water consumption is down because of less argiculture, and the underground lake seems to be holding up pretty well. Granted, the rest of the state is constantly having to do more with less
  - triyambakam 3y ago
    > the underground lake seems to be holding up pretty well. Where can I read more about this? Searching for "Phoenix underground lake" doesn't bring up anything that seems related.
    - billbrown 3y ago
      I think "underground lake" is metaphorical. We have some good geology for our aquifer—it's called the Salt River Valley alluvial basin.[1] The Phoenix Active Management Area has a bunch of water storage[2]. I'd also direct you to the city's 2021 plan.[3] [1] https://new.azwater.gov/hydrology/groundwater-modeling/salt-river-valley-srv-regional-model https://new.azwater.gov/hydrology/groundwater-modeling/salt-... [2] https://waterbank.az.gov/water-storage https://waterbank.az.gov/water-storage [3] https://www.phoenix.gov/waterservicessite/Documents/2021%20City%20of%20Phoenix%20Water%20Resource%20Plan.pdf https://www.phoenix.gov/waterservicessite/Documents/2021%20C...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

EdJiang 3y ago

There's also this guy who purchased a plot of land in the middle of nowhere, West Texas who's trying to terraform it into a forest. No idea how feasible it is, but interesting to watch! https://www.youtube.com/@dustupstexas https://www.youtube.com/@dustupstexas

aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
SCUSKU 3y ago
Just subscribed! Very cool channel. Although his latest video outlining some of his experience with migrants in the desert is extremely heart wrenching. It's nice to see it from his perspective, as just another guy.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mariojv 3y ago

That's the aquifer that serves where I live, San Antonio, among other parts of the region. It's neat seeing the Edwards Aquifer mentioned here along with that site! I remember local news reporting on the aquifer level quite a bit throughout my life. Curious if other regions near major aquifers do the same thing. It really raises awareness about water management. The news publishes the "worst offending addresses" for water overuse occasionally, too. We had the worst drought in recent memory for the region last year, although this year seems to be starting to make up for that. The city's also diversified its water supply outside the aquifer in recent years, such as establishing the Vista Ridge Pipeline from less populated areas of Texas into San Antonio: https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2020/05/08/a-project-10-years-in-the-making-vista-ridge-pipeline-is-now-online/ https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2020/05/08/a-project-10-year... I imagine water infrastructure projects like this are only going to become more common as the climate changes in coming years. The massive aquifer recharge projects mentioned in the original article about California aquifers make me wonder if there's some way one could engineer a very large scale desalination project using natural resources. A project using geothermal resources for evaporative desalination could be interesting.

icehawk 3y ago
To expand on the second paragraph: It wasn't until I moved out of San Antonio, that I realized that you don't get a daily report in the local news as to how much water is in your local water supply.