Water in the Desert: Japanese Garden Edition

Japanese Garden, Albuquerque botanical gardens Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. No doubt there’s a rich literature out there about the idea of the “park,” a human-created faux natural setting, so I won’t try to reinvent it here. This is the new Japanese Garden at the city of Albuquerque’s beautiful botanical gardens. It just opened, it’s lovely, …

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Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere

Atlanta drought in a New Mexico newspaper: The problems New Mexicans face are different than those of Atlanta. We use groundwater for most of our cities’ drinking water, an option Atlanta does not have. In addition, the arid climate of the West is much more variable than in the South. In response, we have built …

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Water in the Desert: Cattle Edition

cattle and water Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. Here’s one of the simple but classic ways we manipulate water here in the western United States. It’s called a stock pond. You carve out a little hollow in a drainage, pile up the dirt on the downhill side, and presto, you’ve got a water supply for your …

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In Praise of the Urban Heat Island

Freeze warning for parts of the Albuquerque area tonight, but it looks like we’ll be OK: ALBUQUERQUE VALLEY LOCATIONS ARE EXPECTED TO SEE FROST CONDITIONS DEVELOP WITH TEMPERATURES RIGHT AROUND THE FREEZING MARK FOR 1 TO 2 HOURS. OTHER AREAS ACROSS THE CITY WILL SEE TEMPERATURES IN THE 30S BUT ABOVE THE 32 DEGREE MARK …

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