The problem in California isn't lack of water for individual use (for the most part, there are a few small communities that are having to truck in water), it's the impact on Agriculture, which is hugely important to the economy of California, and our general food security.
If you were wondering why there aren't more water restrictions for individuals, (Like leaning on people hard to take shorter shower, or use low-flush toilets, or ultra-low-flush toilets) - here's why: Changes to individual use will only have a small impact on our water use - 80% is used for agriculture. Individual restricting use by 20% will only have a 4% impact on overall water use.
With that said, there is a lot of room for California to transition to a "Desert Water Existance"
In 2011, the average californian used about 326 gallons/day of water. With water restriction, that can, with a little bit of expense, and changes in landscaping (no green lawns), be brought down to 150 gallons/day, and with a bit more expense (typically around the toilet), be brought down to 100 gallons/day with some lifestyle changes (typically shorter showers).
On the flip side, California almonds use 1.1 trillion gallons of water each year. That one crop uses enough water to support a population of about 30 million people @ 100 gallons a day.
For individual water use, though - a lot of the California population is right beside the ocean. Desalination costs about $0.75/cubic meter (264 gallons) based on recent Singapore Desalination plant deployments. If we didn't want a lifestyle change, then 329 gallons / day * 30 days / 264 gallons * 0.75 = about $28 to generate the water needed to maintain our lavish California lifestyle (add some more for distribution, which is reasonable for coastal cities without distance or elevation for pumping.
This only works for individuals though - Agriculture needs cheap water to be sustainable, and much of the farmland is too far away from the coast (or too high), too make for economical distribution.
I am gobsmacked - this is a phenomenal amount of water. This is an order of magnitude more than we use here in Melbourne. 326 gallons = 1230 litres, whereas we use ~ 230 litres per person on average. I'm genuinely puzzled by how you use so much water every day.
Previously at the end of a 10-year drought and very low reserves, the government target was 155 litres/day, which was easily done - our household was using about 65-75 litres/day/person, while still doing laundry, daily showering, and keeping a garden. And while we were water-conscious, we weren't particularly strict about it.
I just can't fathom how so many people are using so much water on average every day. Even your tightest suggestion (100 gallons) is double what we're using now in non-drought mode.
That said, it's pretty obscene to drive through the central valley and see people growing rice for acres and acres. In the desert.
Every single farmer can argue the same way ("I only use a tiny fraction of what the state as a whole uses, so it won't help" or "almond farming only uses 10% (I'm making up this number), so it won't help if we, almond farmers, economize on water use")
Everybody can find a group they are in that will have a small impact.
I once met a retired government employee in the desert in Utah, and we talked a bit about water and droughts before he said, "things would have to get really, really, REALLY bad before you couldn't get tap water on demand anymore, even in a desert like this." Listening to his experience I realized that he had the benefit of some experience that I didn't. Not that it makes a draught feel any better. And the wildfires that make your city smell like a campground for days at a time don't help either. :-)
"Nature provides about 200 million acre-feet of precipitation to California in average years. Of this total, 65% is lost through evaporation and transpiration by trees and other plants. The remaining 35% stays in the state’s system as runoff. More than 30% of this runoff flows out to the Pacific Ocean or other salt sinks. The rest is used by agricultural, urban, and environmental purposes.
About 75% of the annual precipitation falls north of Sacramento, while more than 75% of the demand for water is south of the capital city. Most of the rain and snowfall occurs between October and April, while demand is highest during the hot and dry summer months" [1]
While evaporation is part of the natural process, I question how much is self-inflicted by transporting / storing large volumes of water where evaporation will occur at high rates.
Further, while residential may only use around 10% of the roughly 49 million square feet allocated for human use, we really should consider the evaporation costs incurred from transporting part of the base 200 million square feet down south.
I have been unable to find a reliable source that measures the evaporation from the 16 aqueducts [2], let alone the 100s of reservoirs [3]. Please share if you have one.
[1] - http://www.acwa.com/content/california-water-series/californ...
[2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aqueducts
[3] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dams_and_reservoirs_in_...
Thus they'll plant extra plants to provide shade for the ground and reduce evaporation.
The Ottawa River is a major river, Ottawa is the only major user of its water, and doesn't really make a dent in the flow, especially since we put our wastewater back into the Ottawa (after treatment, mostly).
They had no concern about water security, but they did have a concern about fires. There were a couple of cases where dry lawns made it easier for fires to jump from one property to another, so they sent out the notice.
Maybe it was a water delivery limit as opposed to a water source limit.
Although i do remember the river would get so low you could walk quite far out to the middle and Champlain rapids were more like a shallow stream
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/toxic-algae-bloom...
edit: or maybe it's my browser, but I didn't check
it did look pretty decent once I did that. It took me a while to realize the page was broken in the first place though
If we switch to desalination, it will cost about $0.12/Barrel to generate water. Distribution will, of course, dwarf that cost, but production of water is cheap. We just use ridiculous amounts of it, and it's energy expensive to distribute it if you can't take advantage of gravity.
- Development of a robust water entitlement exchange - Decoupling a water right from the land to create a more tradable asset - Regulation change to allow for water leases - A shift away from growing 'thirsty' crops in drought-prone regions - Decentralization of water treatment plants to reduce distribution costs - Increased use of grey and recycled water in the home - Pricing changes based on its use within high water use industries - Increased use of GM crops designed to require less water - State-sponsored overseas farming specifically for US import of thirsty crops - Less water exporting occurring. I.e. selling thirsty crops to China
And I'm sure, much, much more.
I don't know that this is something the US has done but the motivators noted above still stand.
Instead of giant agricultural fields that are open to evaporation, hydroponic or aquaponics inside of greenhouses could vastly reduce water usage.
Instead of huge farms or corporations producing food tens or hundreds of miles away from where it is eaten, community/neighborhood or even household food production could be an alternative. This would be more efficient and save on energy and other costs needed for transporting and retailing food.
These things will probably become more economically viable and popular as solar becomes a consumer-level reality. As in, people are buying solar kits at Walmart or Home Depot regularly. The prices are almost already there.
Pretty sure that a lot of this is related to network effects and trends. The neighborhood urban hydroponic farming thing becomes more economically viable as it becomes more popular, simply because more people are cooperating (via the market) in order to make that more convenient.
Of course, there is a limit to how much food we can produce locally. Right now, even if we converted every Target into an urban farm, and every home and apartment used advanced technology to pull in solar energy efficiently and dedicated a full 1/3 of its space to hydroponic or aquaponic produce, we might only be able to supply a fraction of our food needs that way. What fraction that would be, 10%, 20% or 50%, not sure.
But I feel like that more local production is going to be more efficient and robust in the end, and more and more popular as we start to distribute production technologies more evenly.
When I think of local food production personally I am envisioning taking advantage of the latest in technology in order to create the most efficient and self-sufficient process possible. For now that means things like hydroponics and aquaponics. In the future that could be more sophisticated biotechnology or nanotechnology of some sort.
Its sort of a localization and distribution mindset.
One basic idea is that if food is produced far away, as it is often produced hundred or thousands of miles away, some energy must be expended to transport it. So if a tomato grows hydroponically in the corner of the room, the distance it needs to travel to my mouth in order for me to eat it may be say 10 feet. If it grows in the ground 500 miles away, it would need to travel 500 miles (plus 10 feet). Certainly the energy required to move a tomato 500 miles is greater than zero. Add that up for everything you eat, and there is a fair amount of inefficiency.
Another idea is that producing food or other needs locally means less dependence on more centralized control and distribution systems, which means more security for individuals and families. Its sort of like extending the idea of solar panels and 3d printing. If we can get our own energy from the sun, and print out our own products, why do we have to go to the store to buy food that was grown 400 or 4000 miles away?
In particular, orchards spread through much of California's central valley. These are perennial plants (trees or vines), living decades in some cases.
If you've mortgaged the farm to plant acres of fruit or nut trees, you're not going to let them die in a drought. You'll fight hard for any running water you can get your hands on, and then you'll dig wells and suck as much water out of the ground as your trees need.
Groundwater has been (uncharacteristically!) unregulated in California, so aggressive ranchers or farmers can draw down the water table, threatening their neighbors' wells and causing a 'tragedy of the commons' situation and a race to drill. Sucking all that water out of the ground has all sorts of environmental concerns - as a result, California just passed laws to become the last western state to regulate groundwater usage.
Who has the bigger lobby group?
It is sad though to click on the other tab "When Snows Fall" and see the central valley referred to as an "inhabited desert". We continually try to give the impression that we turned the Central Valley from desert into farmland, when the opposite is the case: we turned what was a winter wetlands into a desert.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Valley_Grasslands_State_P...
True, it's not Mojave or the Sahara, but it's pretty hot and dry. Savanna a la Africa is not a bad comparison.
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/09/dramatic-photos-o...
Please let me know if you find it useful!
