As difficult as it may be to face, the simple fact is that California is running out of water — and the problem started before our current drought. NASA data reveal that total water storage in California has been in steady decline since at least 2002... Right now the state has only about one year of water supply left in its reservoirs, and our strategic backup supply, groundwater, is rapidly disappearing. California has no contingency plan for a persistent drought like this one... — LA Times
According to the article, written by Jay Famiglietti, a senior water scientist at NASA JPL, despite historic low temperatures this winter, California's "wet season" did little to alleviate the drought. In fact, this recent January was the driest in the state's recorded history, which goes back all the way to 1895. According to satellite data, the total amount of water in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins was "34 million acre-feet below normal."
Have an idea for how to address the drought with design? Submit your ideas to the Dry Futures competition!
2 Comments
This is really scary. Should this situation continue, I wonder what that will mean to development patterns.
As a rule of thumb in U.S. water management, one acre-foot is taken to be the planned water usage of a suburban family household, annually.[2] In some areas of the desert Southwest, where water conservation is followed and often enforced, a typical family uses only about 0.25 acre-feet of water per year.[3] One acre-foot/year is approximately 893 gallons (3.38 m³) per day.
Long past time to rethink how water is used.
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