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 …
David Victor on the need for better inclusion of social science in the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: The IPCC must overhaul how it engages with the social sciences in particular…. Fields such as sociology, political science and anthropology are central to understanding how people and societies comprehend and respond to environmental changes, …
Continue reading ‘On climate, a call for more social science’ »
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’ »
As I empty the last of last month’s big snowstorm from my rain barrels onto the garden, I notice the water comes out more and more slowly. It’s a reminder of why power production drops as supply in our big reservoirs declines. Some tricky tradeoffs here:
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
Aaron Citron, with the Environmental Defense Fund, argues that identifying farmers as our water problem – They use 80 percent of our water! – is wrong: [F]armers and ranchers are the original environmentalists, water conservationists and land stewards. They have been, and continue to be, among the first to develop innovative water efficiency solutions, and …
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. …