What Is California's Drought

We have all heard that the drought in California is finally over but, if history repeats itself, we know that it will be back sooner rather than later. The drought has taught us how Groundwater is used and who uses the most. Groundwater is water from below Earth's surface that fills empty spaces and cracks in the rock. 30 million Californians rely on groundwater for their drinking water supply.

California’s continuous drought not only affects California, but essentially impacts the entire food system. Could you imagine an entire state unable to contribute to the growing demands of a thriving economy? As California enters its fifth year of drought the consequences of an ever depleting natural resource, water, continues to negatively impact landscape plants, agricultural production, wildlife, and the economy. The lack of water in California has the potential to have a devastating effect on an ever thriving economy.

Right now there is a drought in California and it is due to the water usage. Bach in the gold rush due to miners mining for gold, the rivers became polluted and freshwater became limited. After the earthquake in San Francisco that cause a big fire, San Francisco was in dire need of water so they made a plan to built a dam in Hetch Hetchy. Many people argue as to whether to build the dam and in the end the dam was built and that has shape California’s water system hugely. The use of water in California now has not been in the best interest of the state because The amount of water use for agriculture is disportional, laws are making us use more water than needed and the Indians and environment are being harm.

Due to the lack of rain in the past few years, and particularly in the last few months, California faces severe drought. This is the worst drought in more than one hundred years. The impact of California drought affects community, agriculture, organic ranchers, and dairy farmers. Because of these facts, the United States must rethink the way it uses water. Californians alone are asked to reduce their water usage by twenty percent to prevent water waste.

On March 27, 2014, Wade Graham of the San Francisco Chronicle reported “The Water Revolution California needs.” California is having a severe drought. Wade Graham tells his readers that California is in a serious water crisis. The state of California needs to make strict changes to how water is being distributed amongst farmers and residents. Before all of California’s ecological system is destroyed. Wade Graham believes that water should be priced higher; that way people aren’t wasting water. Water is a limited resource that should never be wasted, and is probably California’s most valuable resource. Unfortunately, many people waste water; instead of conserve water especially when we live in the state of California where we are subject to

From a wider scope of things, water usage is important for more reasons than solely the drought in California. As the world’s population nears 7.4 billion people, more people are born each day compared to how many pass away. Looking at the world’s total volume of water, only 2.5% of it is drinkable fresh water. Furthermore, 70% of that freshwater is frozen. With an every increase population like the one we have today, it is likely that water will become the most important resource to mankind. The problem lies in the way the fresh water is

In accordance with Adam Nagourney and Jack Healy’s New York Times article, “ Drought Frames Economic Divide of Californians,” it is believed that the residents of California are economically divided which determines the amount of water they consume. In the two cities of comparison, Cowan Heights and Compton, consumption of water has a lot to do with the residents financial background. The daily water consumption rate for the residents of Cowan Heights, whose household median income is $122,662, was 572.4 gallons per person. The daily water consumption rate for the residents of Compton, whose household median income is

California is going on a four-year drought, having many devastating implications that are being felt by everyone in the state. The population hit the hardest has been the farmers of California. California, being economically driven by its agricultural production, is losing hundreds of thousands of jobs every year due to the lack of water. Farmers’ use 80% of water the state produces, directly influencing their production (Mieszkowski, 2014). The country heavily relies on California for much of its produce such as tomatoes, nuts, avocados, strawberries, broccoli, grapes and various others (Cooley et al. 2015). In 2014, harvested acreage was 6.9 million acres, the lowest it has been for the past 15 years. Farmers are now being forced to use significantly less land then before, but also ditch old irrigation techniques and implement new techniques to better conserve water; maximizing production as much as possible in order to combat the drought.

“California’s water future is increasingly uncertain,” says Heather Cooley, in her article California Needs Better Water Management and Pricing Policies (Source A). Agriculture uses 80 percent of California’s constrained water supply and proves to be the primary source of California’s drought. There has been no permanent and largely successful conservation effort to save water. However, with a reformed water management and conservation system, California’s largest industry, agriculture, can thrive while saving water at the same time.

As you are fully aware, California has been in a drought for over four years and the declining water level is a growing issue. A water analysis performed by the City of Fresno clearly reveals that in the past 80 years,

There is a town out of water because of the farmers using too much water for their crops.There is no doubt that California is a big farming country evenly as important since California is in a big drought, without doubt farmers use a lot of water.If they use all the water the city won't have water.Private wells have gone dry before in California, Again not on a scale such as that in East Porterville this summer.-

“For Angelica Gallegos, the worst part has been going without a shower for five months” (Source 2). There is an ongoing drought in California citizens need water, however farmers need it too. California should control aquifers.

Visualize that citizens have to go 5 months without showering, living in filth, not being able to flush their toilet. Horrible right? Well sorrowfully, for numerous cresidents in California, that is the life they live. There is currently a 3-year drought in California. Innumerable citizens are compelled to drive miles and miles away in order to acquire water and bathe, while for farmers, they have been allowed to use aquifers frequently to grow their crops. We do not have enough water for both the farmers and citizens to be used oftenly, which has precipitated an outage between the two. Therefore, the California government is debating on whether to supervise the usage of aquifers. As a result, I support California enforcing

In recent years, California’s water shortage has been an issue and in 2014 an alarming driest historical year has impacted the state in different ways. Because of the lack of rainfall and snow, California’s reservoirs are running insignificant water basins below their capacity. While water shortages are experienced slowly and throughout a length of time, the harshest impacts are noticeable in areas that produce California’s food where wells are used as resource for water in agriculture, and residential areas. Though, most agree the drought is an issue some do not agree. To understand the circumstances, this paper will look at the drought’s impacts on California’s economy for agricultural, famers, and consumers. Also, this written work will examine the environmental consequences of surface water obtainability, and the areas that have encounter the most devastating affects. For most, this paper will examine the allocations of the governor’s drought declaration, and the strategies used by residents to conserver water.

In order for their to be a drought there has to be a long period with dry weather which is caused by lack of perception. And that lack of perception is being caused by climate change. Due to climate change, temperatures are rising and that is leaving less and less water behind. The climate change is also forcing the mountain snowpack to melt.The snowpack which provides for a third of California’s water supply and builds up during wet winters, causes a big impact on the drought. The change in climate patterns is forcing the snowpack to melt faster and earlier, making it more difficult to store and use in the dry spring and summer. Also with the climate change California's rate of evaporation is also high. So, water is being evaporated rather quickly, but with no perception it's not being replaced.But the blame can’t solely put on climate change. Since it's part of a chain sequence which ultimately comes back to us. Through us being careless with our environment we are not only hurting the Earth, but also ourselves as proven by the drought. We must be more aware and active in our fight against climate