10 ms·

How serious is the California drought? Before and after pictures

119 points by hispanic 12y ago

smtddr 12y ago
Meanwhile... http://gizmodo.com/rich-people-are-trucking-their-own-water-into-drought-r-1627178060 http://gizmodo.com/rich-people-are-trucking-their-own-water-...
iLoch 12y ago
Now, I know nothing about Earth science, but is this not at least a little bit expected given that this is a man made lake? Can I see some pictures of natural lakes in this area? Obviously the drought is bad, because this isn't common and looks very worrisome - but how much of this is just due to this lake basically being a giant swimming pool?
Crito 12y ago
Maybe California should re-evaluate their relationship with agriculture. "But California grows so much of our nation's food! What would we eat without them!" you exclaim. Well, I actually agree with you. For the sake of a stable society, it is important that our supply of food remain uninterrupted. Food is essential to the US, and California is essential to the US's food supply. Fucking pistachios are not though. Tax the ever-loving shit out of any farmer growing bullshit luxury crops like that, and quit blaming regular Californian citizens who just want to take a nice shower after a hard days work for all the missing water. Oh, and somebody fix the "save water" propaganda to include some notion of watersheds and aquifers. I've met 3 people recently who don't understand that my [mis]use of fresh water has fuck all to do with California's water supply. I am sick of explaining that my supply of water neither flows out of nor into California.
- gdubs 12y ago
  Or people could just eat a little less beef, which takes 100,000 liters to produce just one kilogram. [1] 1: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-80...
  - bryanlarsen 12y ago
    Cattle is raised in places that are technically desert, like Montana, without requiring any water beyond natural rain fall. They eat the hardy natural grasses of the area. If the land was plowed to grow grains or any other human palatable vegetable crop, the soil would dry up and blow away, becoming desert like other over farmed areas like the Middle East.
    - gdubs 12y ago
      Certainly there are sustainable farming methods, but it doesn't change the fact that industrial factory farms are a reality. My comment was that simply eating less beef would have a huge impact on the environment. I'm not advocating that we replace cattle farms with wheat fields, nor am I advocating that people go vegetarian.
- ars 12y ago
  This really should be the top post in this thread. They are restricting water to residents to benefit farmers. i.e. it's about money, not water. Yet this greenwashing is tricking virtually everyone. And add in the fines they levy for over use of water and it's blindingly obvious this is about money not water.
humannature 12y ago
what percent of water in the bay area currently is recycled? Apparently San Jose has set a goal to recycle or beneficially reuse 100% of wastewater (100 million gallons per day) by 2022.
idlewords 12y ago
Unfortunately, California (and the American West) have experienced droughts on the order of decades or centuries, and in the fairly recent past. So it could get so much worse: http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/medieval.shtml http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/medieval.sh...
rayiner 12y ago
Southern California is a result of big government messing around with the market to disastrous consequences. If it was worthwhile for people to live in California, then the market would've built the necessary irrigation, without Army Corps of Engineers meddling.
- sehr 12y ago
  If you're talking about the Imperial Valley (desert), they actually aren't as affected as most places.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    The Central Valley, where the drought has hit the hardest, is home to major Army Corps of Engineers water projects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_Project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_Project.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  People have lived in California since at least 17,000 BCE, according to archaeological excavation. It had about a third of the native population of what is now the USA.
  - dredmorbius 12y ago
    Source? The total precolumbian population of the Americas (north, south, and central) was ~40-112 million. Less than 1/6 to 1/3 that of the present US and only slightly more than California today at the low end. See Charles C. Mann's 1491, pp. 104-109, among others.
    - lotsofmangos 12y ago
      "something approaching one third of all Native Americans living within the present-day boundaries of the continental United States - which is to say, more than three hundred thousand people - are estimated to have been living within the present-day boundaries of California." http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-IXp7of_QxIC&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=third+of+native+americans+lived+in+california http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-IXp7of_QxIC&pg=PA13&lpg=... The 17,000 BCE may a bit early (that was based off stone flakes rather than direct evidence of human remains), but there are 14,000 year old human coprolites in Oregon and evidence of boat use in California 12,000 years ago. http://www.nature.com/news/ancient-migration-coming-to-america-1.10562 http://www.nature.com/news/ancient-migration-coming-to-ameri... My point was that there were quite a lot of people considering it worthwhile to live in what is now California, long before Europeans got there, let alone any army engineers. There are now a lot more people and it is stretching the water use, but there are a lot more people in most places, not just California. And saying that markets will build any necessary irrigation projects and that the state shouldn't build them is an interesting position to take, given the historic link between irrigation planning and central government. You could make the argument that government wouldn't even exist in the present form, if it were not for the history of managing irrigation.
sytringy05 12y ago
This is how you do a real drought - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_Australian_drought http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_Australian_drought Basically 10 years of below average rainfall. Melbourne's water storages got down to about 25% at one point and I seem to recall you basically can't use the last 20%. There were terrible bushfires in 2002, 2006 and 2009 and farmers needed a fair bit of relief from the government but life went on (with water restrictions). The worst part of the drought was the Victorian government decided to build one of the worlds biggest desal plants (will cost the state about $30b over its lifetime), which was delayed in being finished because the drought broke. They have not used any water from it.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  I just looked it up. Cost of the plant was around $4 billion and the 30 year operating costs are apparently around $1.5 billion. It was only finished in 2012 and so far it has not been required to be used. Over the course of the drought the government handed out $4.5 billion in drought assistance to farmers and the economy overall had over $5 billion in losses per year. 2002-2003 alone cost $6.6 billion. To be honest, this looks like a good insurance plan. Australia should build more of them.
  - neumann 12y ago
    The Victorian desal is a bit more expensive to the taxpayers than that to the tune of $24B, but has been embroiled in financial problems mostly due to the dodgy tender process. http://www.theage.com.au/environment/water-issues/desalination http://www.theage.com.au/environment/water-issues/desalinati...
  - Gustomaximus 12y ago
    Sydney also has a desalinisation plant. Like Victoria, the NSW government copped flak for building this as the drought broke as it finished. Personally I think the detractors are very short sighted. They seem to forget how our dam was almost empty despite heavy water usage restrictions. Running out of water is simply not an option for a major city so it seems pretty handy to have this backup IMO even if it isn't used for 50+ years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Desalination_Plant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Desalination_Plant
npinguy 12y ago
From 5 days ago: http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/2eawhw/how_serious_is_california_drought_check_out_these/ http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/2eawhw/how_serious_is_...
ClayFerguson 12y ago
Makes you wonder if this is indeed a permanent change in the earth's water distribution, rather than just a time of low flow rates. I don't think our climate models can predict it. Not because of atmosphereic, but because of geothermal. We can predict atmospheric, but geothermal is as unpredictable as earthquakes.
- ars 12y ago
  > if this is indeed a permanent change It's not. It's happened many times before.
SilasX 12y ago
How about a picture of a farmer harvesting the rice he's growing with the "ultra scarce" water? ... 'Cause whatever droughts look like, that isn't it.
- wwweston 12y ago
  From what I've heard, a lot of CA rice is grown around the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta, in areas the water table is so high farmers turn pumps off to water crops. Also, keep in mind that while rice can use a lot of water (600 gallons or so to produce a pound of rice), it's small fry to beef, which is an order of magnitude more. Or if you want another beloved non-meat product for comparison, an equivalent weight in wine probably uses on the same order as rice (significantly more for less careful wineries, somewhat less for efficient ones). Not that I'm against the state taking a hard look at all agricultural, industrial, and residential water use. Just not sure we should be picking on rice in particular...
  - SilasX 12y ago
    All good points, but remember, they're still significantly less value-dense uses of water than things we're being hounded to stop. For example, how much is it worth to me to blow 50 gallons of water in a shower. Maybe 5 cents at least? That water is valued at .1 cents per gallon. In contrast, a pound of beef at the ranch costs maybe a dollar. 100 cents to 5000 gallons of water makes it valued at .02 cents per gallon at most (because it has other inputs). The rancher should still cut back way before showers.
    - Shog9 12y ago
      Why are you comparing the cost of the water to your house with the cost of beef at the source? You sure as hell aren't paying $1/lb for beef, and remember that the water you're using in your shower has to be transported and treated before it can be re-used; it's not evaporating off your bathroom floor. This seems like a really odd way to make a comparison, even if we accept that the value to you of a shower and a meal are roughly the same.
tfe 12y ago
It would be nice if they had photos from somewhere other than a single reservoir (Oroville).
bmw357 12y ago
A really interesting article was posted about 6 months ago that covered some of the history and drama around the state's aging water projects: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/02/american-aqueduct-the-great-california-water-saga/284009/ http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/02/american...
dghughes 12y ago
Picture these pictures in reverse but at a coastline then think of the dry after as the normal before and the water as the after. As a person who lives on a very low island, average 20m asl, climate change is going to be rough :{
- chime 12y ago
  I live at 7ft asl. People think I'm kidding when I say I will most likely sell my house due to rising sea-level.
  - dghughes 12y ago
    It's the same here really since most people live on the coast so yeah most of the population would be a few meters above seal level. We've lost so much land and people argue about reclaiming some of the land, some places have lost hundreds of meters in on the last decade. We don't have any rock here it's all sandstone. We're as big as Long Island but I think we may be in trouble if we don't start rebuilding the coast and cutting carbon emissions of course.
smhinsey 12y ago
I'm curious how much water the various water projects in California lose to evaporation. The All-American Canal goes through the desert and is uncovered, for example. It seems like people have talked about covering them with solar cells, but it might be valuable just to cover them with anything.
morgante 12y ago
This is a really poor illustration, because it only includes Lake Oroville, which is a reservoir. Reservoirs exist to be tapped like this and drained down. Even a small drought would see a significant change in the water level for a reservoir.
- iskander 12y ago
  I just drove from Portland to San Francisco, and many of the bridges along Highway 101 looked similar to these photos. Also, in the small towns I stopped in, the drought was a common topic of conversation. Locals said they had never seen the rivers so low.
  - whyenot 12y ago
    California has a mediterranean climate. It is normal for most of the state to receive no significant rainfall May-October and for streams and rivers, especially in the coastal range, to run dry by late summer.
    - taybin 12y ago
      Oh, you're right. They must not be having a drought then.
    - debt 12y ago
      Are you native Californian perchance? Everyone I meet from here seems to not mind the drought too much(although it seems very serious this time, boy cried wolf-type situation).
      - whyenot 12y ago
        I'm not a farmer with junior water rights, so no I'm not concerned. Even in dry years as we are experiencing now, California has more than enough water for domestic use. Some communities, especially those dependent on small local reservoirs, may run into trouble if the drought continues for several years, but California has dealt with this successfully in the past, most recently in the 1976-1977 drought[1]. The people who really need to worry are farmers, especially those without senior water rights. Many farmers in the state have moved from producing row crops, where fields can be left fallow in dry years, to orchard crops like almonds which still need irrigation during a drought. I don't have a lot of sympathy for almond farmers in Bakersfield. Here's a thought: maybe an area of the state with average rainfall of 6" a year isn't a good place for an almond orchard. The drought might actually be a good thing if it forces some of those farmers to move back to row crops. It may also finally force California to regulate groundwater pumping. Unrestricted pumping leads to subsidence[2] and kills off native vegetation by lowering the permanent water table below where the roots of valley oak and other drought adapted plants can reach. Governor Brown has also been fanning the flames a little to sell the public on his delta tunnel plan. He used a similar tactic during the 1976-1977 drought to try and sell the peripheral canal. 1. see for example this CDWR documentary on the 1976-1977 drought https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZXeEktMYLM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZXeEktMYLM 2. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140325-california-drought-subsidence-groundwater/ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140325-calif...
ck2 12y ago
Meanwhile Beverly Hill and other wealthy areas have 5000 gallon water trucks coming in to private properties each day. Where do they think that water is coming from.
dredmorbius 12y ago
For a comparison to historical averages, see California Department of Water Resoruces Reservoir Conditions. Where the historical average calls for about 2/3 capacity, most reservoirs are at about 1/3, some markedly less (10%). You'll get percent-of-average from Reservoir Water Storage (By Hydrologic Region), with historical data for selected years to 1977. A plot for Lake Oroville showing annual patterns for current, wet, and dry years: Lake Oroville Storage Level Graph. URLs in the Reddit comment below, apologies but moblie cut & paste stinks. http://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/2ebhyx/images_3_years_apart_showing_the_severity_of/cjycrx5 http://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/2ebhyx/images_3_ye... http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/resDetailOrig.action?resid=ORO http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/resDetailOrig.action... http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/reservoirs/STORAGEW http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/reservoirs/STORAGEW http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/products/rescond.pdf http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/products/rescond.pdf
declan 12y ago
Nobody doubts there's a serious drought here in California, but those "before and after" photos (2011 vs. 2014) are misleading and likely show seasonal variance. I can find photos predating the "before" images that make Lake Oroville look like a parched wasteland: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518597 http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518597 http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518170 http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518170 http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518629 http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518629 Those were uploaded in 2009 (the camera used was announced in 2006, so that's a three-year window). Yes, there's a drought. Yes, 80 percent of the developed water supply in California is used by agriculture. But not accounting for seasonal variation in a state with a dry vs. rainy season doesn't do the argument justice.

119 points by hispanic 12y ago

Meanwhile... http://gizmodo.com/rich-people-are-trucking-their-own-water-into-drought-r-1627178060 http://gizmodo.com/rich-people-are-trucking-their-own-water-...

iLoch 12y ago

Now, I know nothing about Earth science, but is this not at least a little bit expected given that this is a man made lake? Can I see some pictures of natural lakes in this area? Obviously the drought is bad, because this isn't common and looks very worrisome - but how much of this is just due to this lake basically being a giant swimming pool?

Crito 12y ago

Maybe California should re-evaluate their relationship with agriculture. "But California grows so much of our nation's food! What would we eat without them!" you exclaim. Well, I actually agree with you. For the sake of a stable society, it is important that our supply of food remain uninterrupted. Food is essential to the US, and California is essential to the US's food supply. Fucking pistachios are not though. Tax the ever-loving shit out of any farmer growing bullshit luxury crops like that, and quit blaming regular Californian citizens who just want to take a nice shower after a hard days work for all the missing water. Oh, and somebody fix the "save water" propaganda to include some notion of watersheds and aquifers. I've met 3 people recently who don't understand that my [mis]use of fresh water has fuck all to do with California's water supply. I am sick of explaining that my supply of water neither flows out of nor into California.

gdubs 12y ago
Or people could just eat a little less beef, which takes 100,000 liters to produce just one kilogram. [1] 1: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-80...
- bryanlarsen 12y ago
  Cattle is raised in places that are technically desert, like Montana, without requiring any water beyond natural rain fall. They eat the hardy natural grasses of the area. If the land was plowed to grow grains or any other human palatable vegetable crop, the soil would dry up and blow away, becoming desert like other over farmed areas like the Middle East.
  - gdubs 12y ago
    Certainly there are sustainable farming methods, but it doesn't change the fact that industrial factory farms are a reality. My comment was that simply eating less beef would have a huge impact on the environment. I'm not advocating that we replace cattle farms with wheat fields, nor am I advocating that people go vegetarian.
ars 12y ago
This really should be the top post in this thread. They are restricting water to residents to benefit farmers. i.e. it's about money, not water. Yet this greenwashing is tricking virtually everyone. And add in the fines they levy for over use of water and it's blindingly obvious this is about money not water.

humannature 12y ago

what percent of water in the bay area currently is recycled? Apparently San Jose has set a goal to recycle or beneficially reuse 100% of wastewater (100 million gallons per day) by 2022.

idlewords 12y ago

Unfortunately, California (and the American West) have experienced droughts on the order of decades or centuries, and in the fairly recent past. So it could get so much worse: http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/medieval.shtml http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/medieval.sh...

rayiner 12y ago

Southern California is a result of big government messing around with the market to disastrous consequences. If it was worthwhile for people to live in California, then the market would've built the necessary irrigation, without Army Corps of Engineers meddling.

sehr 12y ago
If you're talking about the Imperial Valley (desert), they actually aren't as affected as most places.
- rayiner 12y ago
  The Central Valley, where the drought has hit the hardest, is home to major Army Corps of Engineers water projects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_Project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_Project.
lotsofmangos 12y ago
People have lived in California since at least 17,000 BCE, according to archaeological excavation. It had about a third of the native population of what is now the USA.
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  Source? The total precolumbian population of the Americas (north, south, and central) was ~40-112 million. Less than 1/6 to 1/3 that of the present US and only slightly more than California today at the low end. See Charles C. Mann's 1491, pp. 104-109, among others.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    "something approaching one third of all Native Americans living within the present-day boundaries of the continental United States - which is to say, more than three hundred thousand people - are estimated to have been living within the present-day boundaries of California." http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-IXp7of_QxIC&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=third+of+native+americans+lived+in+california http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-IXp7of_QxIC&pg=PA13&lpg=... The 17,000 BCE may a bit early (that was based off stone flakes rather than direct evidence of human remains), but there are 14,000 year old human coprolites in Oregon and evidence of boat use in California 12,000 years ago. http://www.nature.com/news/ancient-migration-coming-to-america-1.10562 http://www.nature.com/news/ancient-migration-coming-to-ameri... My point was that there were quite a lot of people considering it worthwhile to live in what is now California, long before Europeans got there, let alone any army engineers. There are now a lot more people and it is stretching the water use, but there are a lot more people in most places, not just California. And saying that markets will build any necessary irrigation projects and that the state shouldn't build them is an interesting position to take, given the historic link between irrigation planning and central government. You could make the argument that government wouldn't even exist in the present form, if it were not for the history of managing irrigation.

sytringy05 12y ago

This is how you do a real drought - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_Australian_drought http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_Australian_drought Basically 10 years of below average rainfall. Melbourne's water storages got down to about 25% at one point and I seem to recall you basically can't use the last 20%. There were terrible bushfires in 2002, 2006 and 2009 and farmers needed a fair bit of relief from the government but life went on (with water restrictions). The worst part of the drought was the Victorian government decided to build one of the worlds biggest desal plants (will cost the state about $30b over its lifetime), which was delayed in being finished because the drought broke. They have not used any water from it.

lotsofmangos 12y ago
I just looked it up. Cost of the plant was around $4 billion and the 30 year operating costs are apparently around $1.5 billion. It was only finished in 2012 and so far it has not been required to be used. Over the course of the drought the government handed out $4.5 billion in drought assistance to farmers and the economy overall had over $5 billion in losses per year. 2002-2003 alone cost $6.6 billion. To be honest, this looks like a good insurance plan. Australia should build more of them.
- neumann 12y ago
  The Victorian desal is a bit more expensive to the taxpayers than that to the tune of $24B, but has been embroiled in financial problems mostly due to the dodgy tender process. http://www.theage.com.au/environment/water-issues/desalination http://www.theage.com.au/environment/water-issues/desalinati...
- Gustomaximus 12y ago
  Sydney also has a desalinisation plant. Like Victoria, the NSW government copped flak for building this as the drought broke as it finished. Personally I think the detractors are very short sighted. They seem to forget how our dam was almost empty despite heavy water usage restrictions. Running out of water is simply not an option for a major city so it seems pretty handy to have this backup IMO even if it isn't used for 50+ years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Desalination_Plant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Desalination_Plant

npinguy 12y ago

From 5 days ago: http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/2eawhw/how_serious_is_california_drought_check_out_these/ http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/2eawhw/how_serious_is_...

ClayFerguson 12y ago

Makes you wonder if this is indeed a permanent change in the earth's water distribution, rather than just a time of low flow rates. I don't think our climate models can predict it. Not because of atmosphereic, but because of geothermal. We can predict atmospheric, but geothermal is as unpredictable as earthquakes.

ars 12y ago
> if this is indeed a permanent change It's not. It's happened many times before.

SilasX 12y ago

How about a picture of a farmer harvesting the rice he's growing with the "ultra scarce" water? ... 'Cause whatever droughts look like, that isn't it.

wwweston 12y ago
From what I've heard, a lot of CA rice is grown around the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta, in areas the water table is so high farmers turn pumps off to water crops. Also, keep in mind that while rice can use a lot of water (600 gallons or so to produce a pound of rice), it's small fry to beef, which is an order of magnitude more. Or if you want another beloved non-meat product for comparison, an equivalent weight in wine probably uses on the same order as rice (significantly more for less careful wineries, somewhat less for efficient ones). Not that I'm against the state taking a hard look at all agricultural, industrial, and residential water use. Just not sure we should be picking on rice in particular...
- SilasX 12y ago
  All good points, but remember, they're still significantly less value-dense uses of water than things we're being hounded to stop. For example, how much is it worth to me to blow 50 gallons of water in a shower. Maybe 5 cents at least? That water is valued at .1 cents per gallon. In contrast, a pound of beef at the ranch costs maybe a dollar. 100 cents to 5000 gallons of water makes it valued at .02 cents per gallon at most (because it has other inputs). The rancher should still cut back way before showers.
  - Shog9 12y ago
    Why are you comparing the cost of the water to your house with the cost of beef at the source? You sure as hell aren't paying $1/lb for beef, and remember that the water you're using in your shower has to be transported and treated before it can be re-used; it's not evaporating off your bathroom floor. This seems like a really odd way to make a comparison, even if we accept that the value to you of a shower and a meal are roughly the same.

tfe 12y ago

It would be nice if they had photos from somewhere other than a single reservoir (Oroville).

bmw357 12y ago

A really interesting article was posted about 6 months ago that covered some of the history and drama around the state's aging water projects: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/02/american-aqueduct-the-great-california-water-saga/284009/ http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/02/american...

dghughes 12y ago

Picture these pictures in reverse but at a coastline then think of the dry after as the normal before and the water as the after. As a person who lives on a very low island, average 20m asl, climate change is going to be rough :{

chime 12y ago
I live at 7ft asl. People think I'm kidding when I say I will most likely sell my house due to rising sea-level.
- dghughes 12y ago
  It's the same here really since most people live on the coast so yeah most of the population would be a few meters above seal level. We've lost so much land and people argue about reclaiming some of the land, some places have lost hundreds of meters in on the last decade. We don't have any rock here it's all sandstone. We're as big as Long Island but I think we may be in trouble if we don't start rebuilding the coast and cutting carbon emissions of course.

smhinsey 12y ago

I'm curious how much water the various water projects in California lose to evaporation. The All-American Canal goes through the desert and is uncovered, for example. It seems like people have talked about covering them with solar cells, but it might be valuable just to cover them with anything.

morgante 12y ago

This is a really poor illustration, because it only includes Lake Oroville, which is a reservoir. Reservoirs exist to be tapped like this and drained down. Even a small drought would see a significant change in the water level for a reservoir.

iskander 12y ago
I just drove from Portland to San Francisco, and many of the bridges along Highway 101 looked similar to these photos. Also, in the small towns I stopped in, the drought was a common topic of conversation. Locals said they had never seen the rivers so low.
- whyenot 12y ago
  California has a mediterranean climate. It is normal for most of the state to receive no significant rainfall May-October and for streams and rivers, especially in the coastal range, to run dry by late summer.
  - taybin 12y ago
    Oh, you're right. They must not be having a drought then.
  - debt 12y ago
    Are you native Californian perchance? Everyone I meet from here seems to not mind the drought too much(although it seems very serious this time, boy cried wolf-type situation).
    - whyenot 12y ago
      I'm not a farmer with junior water rights, so no I'm not concerned. Even in dry years as we are experiencing now, California has more than enough water for domestic use. Some communities, especially those dependent on small local reservoirs, may run into trouble if the drought continues for several years, but California has dealt with this successfully in the past, most recently in the 1976-1977 drought[1]. The people who really need to worry are farmers, especially those without senior water rights. Many farmers in the state have moved from producing row crops, where fields can be left fallow in dry years, to orchard crops like almonds which still need irrigation during a drought. I don't have a lot of sympathy for almond farmers in Bakersfield. Here's a thought: maybe an area of the state with average rainfall of 6" a year isn't a good place for an almond orchard. The drought might actually be a good thing if it forces some of those farmers to move back to row crops. It may also finally force California to regulate groundwater pumping. Unrestricted pumping leads to subsidence[2] and kills off native vegetation by lowering the permanent water table below where the roots of valley oak and other drought adapted plants can reach. Governor Brown has also been fanning the flames a little to sell the public on his delta tunnel plan. He used a similar tactic during the 1976-1977 drought to try and sell the peripheral canal. 1. see for example this CDWR documentary on the 1976-1977 drought https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZXeEktMYLM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZXeEktMYLM 2. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140325-california-drought-subsidence-groundwater/ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140325-calif...

ck2 12y ago

Meanwhile Beverly Hill and other wealthy areas have 5000 gallon water trucks coming in to private properties each day. Where do they think that water is coming from.

dredmorbius 12y ago

For a comparison to historical averages, see California Department of Water Resoruces Reservoir Conditions. Where the historical average calls for about 2/3 capacity, most reservoirs are at about 1/3, some markedly less (10%). You'll get percent-of-average from Reservoir Water Storage (By Hydrologic Region), with historical data for selected years to 1977. A plot for Lake Oroville showing annual patterns for current, wet, and dry years: Lake Oroville Storage Level Graph. URLs in the Reddit comment below, apologies but moblie cut & paste stinks. http://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/2ebhyx/images_3_years_apart_showing_the_severity_of/cjycrx5 http://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/2ebhyx/images_3_ye... http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/resDetailOrig.action?resid=ORO http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/resDetailOrig.action... http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/reservoirs/STORAGEW http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/reservoirs/STORAGEW http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/products/rescond.pdf http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/products/rescond.pdf

declan 12y ago

Nobody doubts there's a serious drought here in California, but those "before and after" photos (2011 vs. 2014) are misleading and likely show seasonal variance. I can find photos predating the "before" images that make Lake Oroville look like a parched wasteland: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518597 http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518597 http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518170 http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518170 http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518629 http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518629 Those were uploaded in 2009 (the camera used was announced in 2006, so that's a three-year window). Yes, there's a drought. Yes, 80 percent of the developed water supply in California is used by agriculture. But not accounting for seasonal variation in a state with a dry vs. rainy season doesn't do the argument justice.