6 ms·

Mapping the Spread of Drought Across the U.S

98 points by mturmon 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
josephschmoe 12y ago
I think there's a certain point at which we need to accept, and are accepting, that droughts will happen and that we need to prepare for them.
josephschmoe 12y ago
We really, really need to stop growing lawn grass as a region.
- micro_cam 12y ago
  We also need good alternatives. If you just leave disturbed earth or stop watering you wend up with nap weed and other noxious, not native weeds that contribute to desertification. Developing a mature, drought tolerant landscape is difficult though there are some really interesting techniques used by permaculturists and others.
- Zikes 12y ago
  Funny enough, that would require changes to laws first: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/07/19/california-couple-faces-fine-for-brown-lawn-after-complying-with-water-saving/ http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/07/19/california-couple-faces... I would love it if I could just throw a bunch of gravel down around my house and never have to worry about mowing again...
  - humanrebar 12y ago
    Well, there is a middle ground involving heartier plants that require little watering (and less maintenance to boot).
    - lotharbot 12y ago
      Denver Water coined the term "xeriscape" (xeros is Greek for "dry") to describe this. They have extensive documentation on how to make it happen, as well as a xeriscaped garden you can tour at their headquarters. http://www.denverwater.org/conservation/xeriscape/ http://www.denverwater.org/conservation/xeriscape/
      - smhinsey 12y ago
        The city of Long Beach will pay you to replace your grass. http://www.lblawntogarden.com/ http://www.lblawntogarden.com/
      - CapitalistCartr 12y ago
        I didn't know the word came from Denver, but now it's commonly pushed here in Florida, too, with demonstration lawns and such.
  - darklajid 12y ago
    That's really ridiculous. You HAVE to have a "nice, green lawn"?
- pacificmint 12y ago
  You seem to be overestimating the amount water we use for lawns. Agriculture uses 77% of all water in California. Residential is less than 14%, with half of that being indoor use. I am all in favor of low water gardening, but you are not going to save us from the drought by getting rid of lawns.
  - humanrebar 12y ago
    Yeah, but agriculture feeds people. Lawns... look nice?
    - jqm 12y ago
      A very good point. But most agriculture water in California is used in livestock production... esp. Alfalfa. If water for agriculture were not so heavily subsidized by taxpayers, the market would likely correct the shortage fairly quickly with changes in diet (which arguably might have some health benefits as well). http://www.publiclandsranching.org/htmlres/wr_guzzling_water.htm http://www.publiclandsranching.org/htmlres/wr_guzzling_water... http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/08/opinion/meat-makes-the-planet-thirsty.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/08/opinion/meat-makes-the-pla...
  - schiffern 12y ago
    >I am all in favor of low water gardening, but you are not going to save us from the drought by getting rid of lawns. That's why you replace the lawns with zero-maintenance[1] food forests. Water? Rainwater irrigates the garden, suburbs having an abundance of 100% runoff surfaces like streets, roofs, etc that are usually mismanaged. Reforestation is critical, since ~80% of inland rainfall comes from transpiration.[2] In deserts (read: much of California), minimizing evaporation is key. You also need to harvest the infrequent (and torrential) rains that do happen. If you have a floods followed months later by droughts, that should tell you that your water system isn't set up correctly. ;) Global warming? How about instead of driving to the supermarket, having the produce section is right outside your door? Since an acre of farm-land is now CO2 positive, this is a big win. Fertilizer? Municipal-scale composting of human wastes[3] can safely close the nutrient cycle. In a zero-maintenance system the "weeds" build soil, fix nitrogen, eat minerals, and attract support species like pest-eaters and pollinators (which are really "seed spreaders", since they let the plants re-seed themselves). One challenge is that zero-maintenance food systems can look "messy" to the suburban eye [1] Do you have time to tend a garden? [2] http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~jjgibson/mypdfs/nature11983.pdf http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~jjgibson/mypdfs/nature11983... [3] e.g. http://www.milorganite.com/Using-Milorganite/What-is-It http://www.milorganite.com/Using-Milorganite/What-is-It
- ssmoot 12y ago
  I'm only 1 season in, but clover is nice. A part of the grass thing I think is the fairly recent desire to have a pure Fescue/Bermuda/etc grass lawn. I don't remember why, but a few months ago it popped into my head: You know, when I was a kid in Harlingen, there was clover everywhere. We'd pick a bit out of lawns as we roamed the neighborhood and chew on it. It's been decades since I've seen a neighborhood like that... So I bought some clover seed and spread it around. Within just a couple weeks (4 or 5 days of daily watering at the outset to establish it) it was crazy green, spread through most of the lawn, while not being disruptive to the grass. The grass actually seems to be benefitting. It is chocking out weeds OTOH, so win win win. Overall my lawn is a whole lot brighter/greener/more-alive and it doesn't take more than the twice weekly watering schedule allowed by DFW's water conservation ordinances. Now at the height of summer my lawn looks better than most of my neighbors and unlike the retirees' manicured lawns I'm not out there watering with a hose (a loophole the water conservation ordinance allows to please the demographic) daily. I just thought it was noteworthy that there's a middle-ground between green painted gravel like Sun City, AZ, and golf-course lawns.
  - positr0n 12y ago
    > watering with a hose (a loophole...) Are you sure that's a loophole? I've seen statistics that hand watering and drip irrigation systems are much less wasteful than sprinklers. And sprinklers are the only thing that are banned to twice-weekly in my region of DFW at least.
    - ssmoot 12y ago
      I think drip is in a different category. I wouldn't argue your overall point, but my point is that it's not like those neighbors don't run their sprinkler systems. They're supplementing with hand watering. Not substituting. And who has time for that except empty-nesters? Don't get me wrong. I love my neighbors. Living in the city has been an entirely different experience for me coming from the suburbs. There's an actual feeling of community here I never experienced out there. Maybe it's unfair, but I just expect City Hall would have a hard time going to usage based billing instead.
  - 12y ago
- fleitz 12y ago
  Not growing rice may also help.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- cylinder 12y ago
  That drought is spreading across the western US. Not sure how that's difficult to discern.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
danso 12y ago
I think this excellent feature also serves as a great example of the shortcomings of maps. When I saw the tweeted screenshot of the most recent version of this map, I thought, "Oh shit, the drought is all over the place!" However, actually going to the article and seeing the D3 animation...I see that it's...kind of the same as before? That is, still not great, but not overall more of a severe drought? Or is it? Just because it looks like a few areas have receded, I can't say for sure my eye is summing up all the drought-areas correctly...so even with the time-lapse, it's hard to tell if things have gotten worse, or better... And of course, "better/worse" compared to the last few months is just one thing to care about...I'd also like to know how the drought level right now compares to last year, last decade, etc....and while we're looking at the past, I want to see what the rates of change were in those past timeframes, so I can judge whether or not the change from this month to last is drastic or expected (based on the cycle). The bottom of the article contains just that chart (which is why I think this is such a great feature)...of course, you lose the geographical information, but at least the perspective is there. One minor improvement, with a small tradeoff in clutter, is to overlay a small part of the Palmer Drought Index chart on top (or near) the map, so that anyone visiting this map, now or in the future, can have some perspective at a glance on how bad the drought is...because without that frame of reference, just about any quantity of orange/red over a geographical map will be dramatic.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  It's not a "shortcoming of maps". It's a difficulty in data representation. It's hard to clearly display more than two metrics in a chart. If geography is one of your key metrics, a map is perfect.
- Retric 12y ago
  The map is just for this summer, so it's not really trying to show a progression. Just which areas are in continuous drought vs a 1 off. An annual map going back a 100 or so years would be vary interesting, but I don't think we have that data.
  - rplst8 12y ago
    This. There may be some correlation between AGW and this drought, but this map is not doing a good job of illustrating that.
bjliu 12y ago
Mike Bostock and D3!
- Zikes 12y ago
  Everything that guy touches is visualization gold. I wish I had half as much talent.
- mturmon 12y ago
  Exactly! I submitted it because @mbostock (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mbostock https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mbostock) is a contributor here, and I think (?) this is his first direct appearance in the NYT. Congratulations!
  - dmarusic16 12y ago
    Not true: Mike Bostock's stuff is all over the NYT website very frequently. He and Jeremy Ashkenas seem to be key players over there. Very inspiring work from both of them.
    - mturmon 12y ago
      Thanks for the correction.
- cowbell 12y ago
  Glad someone pointed out the really weak "Hacker News" tie in. I thought I left global warming wars behind at slashdot. Why is it global warming warriors decide to invade every tech board? Isn't there a global warming board somewhere they can argue on?
  - dwaltrip 12y ago
    You didn't have to click on the link. Also, your categorization of "global warming warriors" seems a bit senseless, as if there are not regular folks on HN who happen to also be interested in climate change.
cwal37 12y ago
A few water and the southwest related articles: Water and Texas: http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/print-view/who-stole-the-water-20140623 http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/print-view/who-stole-the... Arizona and wildfires (and water): http://www.azcentral.com/news/wildfires/yarnell/arizona-wildfires-homes-forests-risk/ http://www.azcentral.com/news/wildfires/yarnell/arizona-wild... SoCal's current water management (shorter than the other articles): http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-famiglietti-southern-california-drought-20140709-story.html http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-famiglietti-south...
TravisLS 12y ago
What's the evidence for the link between west coast droughts in recent years and global warming? (I'm not trying to start a debate, just genuinely asking).
- leCapitalist 12y ago
  I was left wondering the same thing. The author did not present evidence that global warming is the cause, and from the Palmer Drought Index data, the current drought appears no more severe than those of the 30s and 50s.
  - guelo 12y ago
    The evidence given in the article is "A 10-year average of Palmer values has been increasing for most of the last 20 years, which is to say that the country is in the midst of one of its most sustained periods of increasing drought on record." If the new normal is what used to be severe peaks than the west is in trouble. But looking at that graph, especially the non-smoothed light-grey line, I'd say we need another 10 years of data to be sure that we are in a new pattern.
    - schiffern 12y ago
      >But looking at that graph, especially the non-smoothed light-grey line, I'd say we need another 10 years of data to be sure that we are in a new pattern. Ok, imagine it's a decade hence and we're all "sure" the Western US is in a new climate pattern (most likely because it's gotten worse). What happens then?
      - guelo 12y ago
        Personally I'm very much a global warming believer and I think we needed big carbon taxes 20 years ago. That doesn't mean that I think any aberration in weather patterns should be blamed on global warming without evidence.
        deleted 12y ago
mathattack 12y ago
I recall reading that Napa and Sonoma are going downhill as a result, and that 10-15 more years of this will make the Washington and Oregon wines just as good, if not better. I hope the Microsoft millionaires are investing in wine country. :-)

98 points by mturmon 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

I think there's a certain point at which we need to accept, and are accepting, that droughts will happen and that we need to prepare for them.

josephschmoe 12y ago

We really, really need to stop growing lawn grass as a region.

micro_cam 12y ago
We also need good alternatives. If you just leave disturbed earth or stop watering you wend up with nap weed and other noxious, not native weeds that contribute to desertification. Developing a mature, drought tolerant landscape is difficult though there are some really interesting techniques used by permaculturists and others.
Zikes 12y ago
Funny enough, that would require changes to laws first: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/07/19/california-couple-faces-fine-for-brown-lawn-after-complying-with-water-saving/ http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/07/19/california-couple-faces... I would love it if I could just throw a bunch of gravel down around my house and never have to worry about mowing again...
- humanrebar 12y ago
  Well, there is a middle ground involving heartier plants that require little watering (and less maintenance to boot).
  - lotharbot 12y ago
    Denver Water coined the term "xeriscape" (xeros is Greek for "dry") to describe this. They have extensive documentation on how to make it happen, as well as a xeriscaped garden you can tour at their headquarters. http://www.denverwater.org/conservation/xeriscape/ http://www.denverwater.org/conservation/xeriscape/
    - smhinsey 12y ago
      The city of Long Beach will pay you to replace your grass. http://www.lblawntogarden.com/ http://www.lblawntogarden.com/
    - CapitalistCartr 12y ago
      I didn't know the word came from Denver, but now it's commonly pushed here in Florida, too, with demonstration lawns and such.
- darklajid 12y ago
  That's really ridiculous. You HAVE to have a "nice, green lawn"?
pacificmint 12y ago
You seem to be overestimating the amount water we use for lawns. Agriculture uses 77% of all water in California. Residential is less than 14%, with half of that being indoor use. I am all in favor of low water gardening, but you are not going to save us from the drought by getting rid of lawns.
- humanrebar 12y ago
  Yeah, but agriculture feeds people. Lawns... look nice?
  - jqm 12y ago
    A very good point. But most agriculture water in California is used in livestock production... esp. Alfalfa. If water for agriculture were not so heavily subsidized by taxpayers, the market would likely correct the shortage fairly quickly with changes in diet (which arguably might have some health benefits as well). http://www.publiclandsranching.org/htmlres/wr_guzzling_water.htm http://www.publiclandsranching.org/htmlres/wr_guzzling_water... http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/08/opinion/meat-makes-the-planet-thirsty.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/08/opinion/meat-makes-the-pla...
- schiffern 12y ago
  >I am all in favor of low water gardening, but you are not going to save us from the drought by getting rid of lawns. That's why you replace the lawns with zero-maintenance[1] food forests. Water? Rainwater irrigates the garden, suburbs having an abundance of 100% runoff surfaces like streets, roofs, etc that are usually mismanaged. Reforestation is critical, since ~80% of inland rainfall comes from transpiration.[2] In deserts (read: much of California), minimizing evaporation is key. You also need to harvest the infrequent (and torrential) rains that do happen. If you have a floods followed months later by droughts, that should tell you that your water system isn't set up correctly. ;) Global warming? How about instead of driving to the supermarket, having the produce section is right outside your door? Since an acre of farm-land is now CO2 positive, this is a big win. Fertilizer? Municipal-scale composting of human wastes[3] can safely close the nutrient cycle. In a zero-maintenance system the "weeds" build soil, fix nitrogen, eat minerals, and attract support species like pest-eaters and pollinators (which are really "seed spreaders", since they let the plants re-seed themselves). One challenge is that zero-maintenance food systems can look "messy" to the suburban eye [1] Do you have time to tend a garden? [2] http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~jjgibson/mypdfs/nature11983.pdf http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~jjgibson/mypdfs/nature11983... [3] e.g. http://www.milorganite.com/Using-Milorganite/What-is-It http://www.milorganite.com/Using-Milorganite/What-is-It
ssmoot 12y ago
I'm only 1 season in, but clover is nice. A part of the grass thing I think is the fairly recent desire to have a pure Fescue/Bermuda/etc grass lawn. I don't remember why, but a few months ago it popped into my head: You know, when I was a kid in Harlingen, there was clover everywhere. We'd pick a bit out of lawns as we roamed the neighborhood and chew on it. It's been decades since I've seen a neighborhood like that... So I bought some clover seed and spread it around. Within just a couple weeks (4 or 5 days of daily watering at the outset to establish it) it was crazy green, spread through most of the lawn, while not being disruptive to the grass. The grass actually seems to be benefitting. It is chocking out weeds OTOH, so win win win. Overall my lawn is a whole lot brighter/greener/more-alive and it doesn't take more than the twice weekly watering schedule allowed by DFW's water conservation ordinances. Now at the height of summer my lawn looks better than most of my neighbors and unlike the retirees' manicured lawns I'm not out there watering with a hose (a loophole the water conservation ordinance allows to please the demographic) daily. I just thought it was noteworthy that there's a middle-ground between green painted gravel like Sun City, AZ, and golf-course lawns.
- positr0n 12y ago
  > watering with a hose (a loophole...) Are you sure that's a loophole? I've seen statistics that hand watering and drip irrigation systems are much less wasteful than sprinklers. And sprinklers are the only thing that are banned to twice-weekly in my region of DFW at least.
  - ssmoot 12y ago
    I think drip is in a different category. I wouldn't argue your overall point, but my point is that it's not like those neighbors don't run their sprinkler systems. They're supplementing with hand watering. Not substituting. And who has time for that except empty-nesters? Don't get me wrong. I love my neighbors. Living in the city has been an entirely different experience for me coming from the suburbs. There's an actual feeling of community here I never experienced out there. Maybe it's unfair, but I just expect City Hall would have a hard time going to usage based billing instead.
- 12y ago
fleitz 12y ago
Not growing rice may also help.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

cylinder 12y ago
That drought is spreading across the western US. Not sure how that's difficult to discern.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

danso 12y ago

I think this excellent feature also serves as a great example of the shortcomings of maps. When I saw the tweeted screenshot of the most recent version of this map, I thought, "Oh shit, the drought is all over the place!" However, actually going to the article and seeing the D3 animation...I see that it's...kind of the same as before? That is, still not great, but not overall more of a severe drought? Or is it? Just because it looks like a few areas have receded, I can't say for sure my eye is summing up all the drought-areas correctly...so even with the time-lapse, it's hard to tell if things have gotten worse, or better... And of course, "better/worse" compared to the last few months is just one thing to care about...I'd also like to know how the drought level right now compares to last year, last decade, etc....and while we're looking at the past, I want to see what the rates of change were in those past timeframes, so I can judge whether or not the change from this month to last is drastic or expected (based on the cycle). The bottom of the article contains just that chart (which is why I think this is such a great feature)...of course, you lose the geographical information, but at least the perspective is there. One minor improvement, with a small tradeoff in clutter, is to overlay a small part of the Palmer Drought Index chart on top (or near) the map, so that anyone visiting this map, now or in the future, can have some perspective at a glance on how bad the drought is...because without that frame of reference, just about any quantity of orange/red over a geographical map will be dramatic.

sliverstorm 12y ago
It's not a "shortcoming of maps". It's a difficulty in data representation. It's hard to clearly display more than two metrics in a chart. If geography is one of your key metrics, a map is perfect.
Retric 12y ago
The map is just for this summer, so it's not really trying to show a progression. Just which areas are in continuous drought vs a 1 off. An annual map going back a 100 or so years would be vary interesting, but I don't think we have that data.
- rplst8 12y ago
  This. There may be some correlation between AGW and this drought, but this map is not doing a good job of illustrating that.

bjliu 12y ago

Mike Bostock and D3!

Zikes 12y ago
Everything that guy touches is visualization gold. I wish I had half as much talent.
mturmon 12y ago
Exactly! I submitted it because @mbostock (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mbostock https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mbostock) is a contributor here, and I think (?) this is his first direct appearance in the NYT. Congratulations!
- dmarusic16 12y ago
  Not true: Mike Bostock's stuff is all over the NYT website very frequently. He and Jeremy Ashkenas seem to be key players over there. Very inspiring work from both of them.
  - mturmon 12y ago
    Thanks for the correction.
cowbell 12y ago
Glad someone pointed out the really weak "Hacker News" tie in. I thought I left global warming wars behind at slashdot. Why is it global warming warriors decide to invade every tech board? Isn't there a global warming board somewhere they can argue on?
- dwaltrip 12y ago
  You didn't have to click on the link. Also, your categorization of "global warming warriors" seems a bit senseless, as if there are not regular folks on HN who happen to also be interested in climate change.

cwal37 12y ago

A few water and the southwest related articles: Water and Texas: http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/print-view/who-stole-the-water-20140623 http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/print-view/who-stole-the... Arizona and wildfires (and water): http://www.azcentral.com/news/wildfires/yarnell/arizona-wildfires-homes-forests-risk/ http://www.azcentral.com/news/wildfires/yarnell/arizona-wild... SoCal's current water management (shorter than the other articles): http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-famiglietti-southern-california-drought-20140709-story.html http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-famiglietti-south...

TravisLS 12y ago

What's the evidence for the link between west coast droughts in recent years and global warming? (I'm not trying to start a debate, just genuinely asking).

leCapitalist 12y ago
I was left wondering the same thing. The author did not present evidence that global warming is the cause, and from the Palmer Drought Index data, the current drought appears no more severe than those of the 30s and 50s.
- guelo 12y ago
  The evidence given in the article is "A 10-year average of Palmer values has been increasing for most of the last 20 years, which is to say that the country is in the midst of one of its most sustained periods of increasing drought on record." If the new normal is what used to be severe peaks than the west is in trouble. But looking at that graph, especially the non-smoothed light-grey line, I'd say we need another 10 years of data to be sure that we are in a new pattern.
  - schiffern 12y ago
    >But looking at that graph, especially the non-smoothed light-grey line, I'd say we need another 10 years of data to be sure that we are in a new pattern. Ok, imagine it's a decade hence and we're all "sure" the Western US is in a new climate pattern (most likely because it's gotten worse). What happens then?
    - guelo 12y ago
      Personally I'm very much a global warming believer and I think we needed big carbon taxes 20 years ago. That doesn't mean that I think any aberration in weather patterns should be blamed on global warming without evidence.
      - deleted 12y ago

mathattack 12y ago

I recall reading that Napa and Sonoma are going downhill as a result, and that 10-15 more years of this will make the Washington and Oregon wines just as good, if not better. I hope the Microsoft millionaires are investing in wine country. :-)