Getting ready for a reporting trip next week to Yuma, I’ve had occasion to revisit a recent favorite Colorado River water book, Robert Sauder’s The Yuma Reclamation Project. Yuma is the last thing the Colorado River sees as it leaves the United States and disappears into the agricultural diversion canals of the Mexicali Valley, there …
Water markets – willing buyers and willing sellers, to get water moved from places with a lot to places that need it really bad – are a hot topic of conversation right now, what with California’s big drought and all. Brian Devine at the University of Colorado has a nice post up this week explaining …
Continue reading ‘Some difficulties in setting up water markets’ »
California farmers by now have a pretty clear picture of what their water supply situation is going to be this year, whether it’s reservoir and irrigation system surface delivery, or groundwater pumping. The U.S. Department of Agriculture today released projected acreage for the state’s major field crops (pdf) that reflects farmers’ resulting choices: corn: 430,000 …
A guest post of sorts* from a group of prominent economists here in the western United States questioning the findings in a widely quoted report (pdf here) by a group from Arizona State about the potential economic impact if the Colorado River went dry: *********** A January 14th article in the Wall Street Journal reported …
Continue reading ‘Exaggerated Impacts of Unrealistic Water Shortages’ »
The price California farmers can get for their almonds doubled between 2007 and last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Strong incentive to plant more trees, drought notwithstanding:
USDA estimates of revenue from California crop production (excluding horticulture) in recent years. I know just enough about this data to be misleading or dangerous, so I make no claims, but it sure seems interesting. Source: USDA NASS
Jeff Michael at the University of the Pacific’s Center for Business and Policy Research summarizes data on economic recovery in California suggesting that the impact of the drought has not, at least to date, been as significant as some might suggest: Focusing just on the Central Valley, there is a geographical pattern from north to south. …
The New Mexico legislature is considering a bill this year that would make it easier for farmers to maintain their “agricultural” designation, for property tax purposes, during drought. This is important for preservation of rural agricultural ways of life, because ag land taxes are cheaper than land otherwise labeled (“residential”, for example). For this reason, …
OtPR the other day suggested compensation as drought mitigation: If the goal is drought resilience, we could use money instead of water to keep farm communities intact until a wet year. If it is important that farm workers in Mendota live decent lives during droughts, we don’t have to find non-existent water for their employers’ farms. We …
Continue reading ‘In Brazil’s drought, compensating the poor’ »
The new paper by Ben Cook and colleagues clarifying our understanding the risk of megadrought in the southwestern United States has rightly gotten a lot of attention. Combining paleo records and modeling of a changing climate under rising greenhouse gas scenarios, Cook and his colleagues have created some scary reading: [F]uture drought risk will likely …
Continue reading ‘Megadrought paper: message received, now what do we do?’ »