No California resident can claim ignorance of the current drought conditions: things are bad, and they'll probably stay that way for a while. Governor Jerry Brown called for statewide water restrictions earlier this year, and news coverage of dwindling supplies, dry rivers and sinking farmland have flooded the local and national media for months. While the drought is on every Californian’s mind in some way, it can still be hard to imagine the sheer physical extent of our water: where it comes from, and how exactly we use it. Making drought conditions tangible can be difficult for anyone, in or out of California.
In the final week of Archinect’s open call for submissions to our Dry Futures competition, we’ve compiled some helpful stats and figures for better understanding water use in California. These are basic numbers, intended to be used as a framing context for how water flows through the state. But first, let’s clarify some water-based terminology, courtesy of the US Geological Survey…
Now, let’s take a trip back to elementary school and revisit this diagrammatic gem: The Water Cycle. How does water move around our planet and atmosphere?
So, where does California’s water come from?
In California, all water used for human consumption comes from four major sources, originating both within the state and elsewhere. Those sources are: The San Francisco Bay delta, groundwater, the Colorado River, and the Russian River. Any given resident may get water from more than one of these sources, depending on the water's use.
The confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers in the San Francisco Bay Delta provide the vast majority of water to the state – around two-thirds of Californians get their water from here, while most of it flows to farming in the Central Valley.
Roughly half of California residents get water from groundwater sources, the largest aquifers of which are found in the Central Valley. About the same proportion of Californians are serviced from the Colorado River, a source also relied upon heavily by other states, Mexico, and Native American communities. California has historically drawn more than its fair share from the Colorado River, going so far as to temporarily reroute its flow in the early 20th century, ultimately creating the Salton Sea.
The final major water source in California is the Russian River, serving citizens mostly in Marin and Sonoma counties. Additional sources providing comparatively minimal supplies, such as desalination plants, may be pulled on more in the imminent future, should conservation and more efficient management not fulfill our water needs.
How does California use its water?
When considering how all of California’s water is distributed across the state, much of it, by ecological necessity, is not destined for human hands or mouths. Roughly half of California’s water is fulfilling some environmental role and can’t be “developed” for human consumption. That covers water needed to maintain aquatic habitats, in federally or state-protected “wild and scenic” rivers, in wildlife preserves, etc. Of the other half of California’s water, the half intended for human use, 80% is used for farming operations, while the remaining 20% goes to urban use.*
How is water distributed throughout California?
Wrangling the water from its source and into systems for human manipulation is managed through a wide range of federal, state and municipal entities, as well as some private organizations, too wonky to get into here. But generally, it’s done through seven major distribution systems: the All-American Canal (at the Mexico border), the State Water Project (statewide), the Central Valley Project, Colorado River delivery systems, the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the Tuolumne River/Hetch Hetchy system in Yosemite, and Mokelumne Aqueduct outside the Bay Area in the Central Valley.
From there, who uses the water, for what, and how much it costs also plays a role in who ultimately dispenses and controls the water. But many of these rules governing water distribution and sale aren’t up to date or efficient, and sometimes they don’t even exist. For example, California laws governing individual well-digging to access groundwater reservoirs aren’t very well developed, leading to some well-wars in the Central Valley, to see who can dig deeper and suck out the most water.
How much water does an individual use in a day?
On average, a person uses 80-100 gallons of water per day. By activity, here’s a rough breakdown of how much of that water is used to:
Estimate your own daily usage with USGS's handy calculator.
OK, but what about agricultural use?
How much water does it take to grow crops? Will almonds suck California dry? The Los Angeles Times published an incredibly handy infographic, comparing how thirsty commonly grown crops are in California. Keep in mind that a significant portion of the crops grown in California go to feeding livestock, which in turn consume their own direct supply of water. View the full interactive graphic here.
And how much does water cost?
As with deciding any utility’s price, it’s complicated. To better serve conservation efforts, some municipalities have begun proposing alternative rate-structures, such as setting prices based on peak demand times (the more people are using water at a given time, the more it costs), or on total volume, so that rates increase exponentially instead of linearly. Determining exactly how much water costs is a bit too complicated to dig fully into here, but the short answer is: probably not enough.
For those interested, here are some deeper dives into water rate deliberations from the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Sacramento Bee.
This is all to say…
Water – where it comes from, how we use it, how much it costs – is a complex ecological and economic system. None of the numbers detailed here should be taken for granted, and are open to fluctuate given new technologies, shifting policies and cultural expectations. Before we throw billions of dollars at desalinating oceans or cloud-seeding, there’s lots we can do to make water use more efficient and strategic, and ultimately resilient in the face of inevitable future droughts.
Have an idea for how to address the drought with design? Submit your ideas to the Dry Futures competition!
3 Comments
It was my impression that a fairly large percentage of total average household water use, was used for landscaping and other outdoor uses. Generally in the USA and more specifically in California "about 53 percent of total average household water use — or more than 190 gallons per household per day" (source CDWR study via KQED).
Is that not reflected in above info because things have changed in the state so dramatically (due to the water restrictions) in the last year?
Thanks for the q Nam! You're right, lots of water goes to landscaping in California. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, "roughly half of urban water use is for residential and commercial landscaping." Despite California's drought and population growth, "total urban water use has remained roughly constant over the past 20 years." This is largely attributed to better conservation efforts and more efficient technologies.
We wanted the figures to relate directly to an individual's water use, and because things like watering lawns or other landscaping functions typically apply to household units (or larger), the comparison wouldn't hit home in the same way. But indeed, one of the major issues in enforcing conservation efforts is a lack of individual responsibility or knowledge of water use – for example, if your apartment building foots your water bill, you have less of a financial incentive to conserve.
Thanks for the answer!
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