Archive of posts filed under the water category.

Does access to water make you more vulnerable to drought?

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It might seem obvious that the more water you have available, the less vulnerable you are to drought. Or not so obvious? Comparing counties over the Ogallala with nearby similar counties, groundwater access increased irrigation intensity and initially reduced the impact of droughts. Over time, land-use adjusted toward water-intensive crops and drought-sensitivity increased; conversely, farmers …

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Dipping more drinking straws into the Colorado River

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When it comes to water, we westerners seem to be a distrustful lot: Water politics in Colorado and in western Wyoming have long been driven by this one, nagging fear: that California was getting something to which it was not entitled – and might get accustomed to it. Squatter rights, if you will, bolstered by …

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What will it take to end New Mexico drought?

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Corey Pieper, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Texas, linked this evening to some excellent (if grim) maps showing what it would take to bring Texas, New Mexico and the rest of the southern tier of states out of drought. The first is the percent of normal precipitation required over the winter to end drought: …

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Stuff I wrote elsewhere: Getting to know our river

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From the morning paper, a riff on getting acquainted with our river: The question of what we know about our river, and how we care for it, has been on my mind since I finished reading Cynthia Barnett’s new book, “Blue Revolution.” Barnett, a Florida journalist, writes about the need for a water ethic. She …

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Can we blame Westlands shortages on Colorado River management?

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Via Doug Obegi at NRDC’s San Francisco office, more evidence today of the interconnection of water management across the western United States. Obegi, in a post outlining the history of diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, pointed out the way water allotments to the Westlands Water District in the San Joaquin Valley decreased as the …

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Water use in Indian Country

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In the western United States, water use and water rights questions associated with Native American communities are a major factor in the region’s future. Under federal law, these communities are entitled to substantial but often unquantified amounts of water. Planning for the future often gets tangled up in these questions. For example: Not all tribes …

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SREX, slow journalism edition

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Given the time scales associated with climate change and societal response, it seems perhaps best to wait to consume the new IPCC Special Report Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) until it’s actually done. This seems especially true given its stated purpose: The assessment concerns the interaction of climatic, environmental, and human …

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The economic origins of wildlife refuges

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In his richly detailed The Fall and Rise of the Wetlands of California’s Great Central Valley, Philip Garone explains a bit about the origin of wildlife refuges that I never knew: During the early decades of the twentieth century, much of the Sacramento Valley was converted to profitable rice production. However, because the valley’s natural …

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