In honor of World Rivers Day, I rode my bike down to check out the Rio Grande through Albuquerque this morning. That’s really a bit of a cheat. Most weekends I end up riding my bike down to check out the Rio Grande at least once, but it’s World Rivers Day, and water nerds are …
If you think California’s water problems look bad now, just wait. That seems to be the message of a new study by a team from the USGS, Scripps, Berkeley and elsewhere who ran detailed simulations of climate change scenarios on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta/San Francisco Bay system. The project provides a useful exercise, not in …
Continue reading ‘Climate change and California water: a bad situation likely to get worse’ »
A wise scientist once remarked on the burnable properties of wood: BEDEMIR: Tell me, what do you do with witches? VILLAGER #2: Burn! CROWD: Burn, burn them up! BEDEMIR: And what do you burn apart from witches? VILLAGER #1: More witches! VILLAGER #2: Wood! BEDEMIR: So, why do witches burn? [pause] VILLAGER #3: B–… ’cause …
In an interview with Sacramento’s Capital Report, California resources secretary John Laird got off the water wonks’ quip of a lifetime: Water is the Rubik’s Cube of public policy. It will be quoted for all eternity. But really, it’s a lousy metaphor. Here’s the meat of what he said: The thing that probably works to …
Continue reading ‘Water: Why “the Rubik’s Cube of public policy” misses the point’ »
Great job by Jay Lund in unpacking the issue of California water storage – how much it has, how it’s used and what role it might play going forward: Climate warming is reducing the ability of California’s snowpack to store water seasonally. Fortunately, downstream reservoirs on many streams are already large compared to seasonal changes …
NASA’s great Earth Observatory published satellite images of the Aral Sea showing changes over the last year as the sea (really four distinct bodies of water now) shrinks as water that once flowed in is diverted for human consumptive use. Which led me, thanks to a helpful twitter tip, to this great pair of satellite …
From Steven Solomon’s Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization: So closely correlated was river management and governing power that the very Chinese character for “politics” is derived from root words meaning flood control.
I’m all for a serious discussion about the costs and benefits of desalination as a source of water supply in the arid southwestern United States. But I find this argument, from Ted Owen of the Carlsbad, Calif., Chamber of Commerce, less than helpful: Jobs. Everyone in business and government is talking about the need to …
Wayne Bossert, who manages the Northwest Kansas Groundwater Management District No. 4 on the famed Ogallala Aquifer, raised the interesting issue recently in testimony at a Senate field hearing of the effect of federal agricultural policy on water: Historically the farm bill has been blamed for promoting fencerow-to-fencerow corn production due to it’s design and …
In a hard-hitting exposé, the Desert Sun earlier this month seems to have conclusively cleared the Salton Sea of charges that it smells really bad: The smell seemed to be everywhere — except the place where people usually think it comes from. A pungent, sewer-like odor in the air was noted Friday morning by people …
Continue reading ‘Newspaper exonerates Salton Sea of charges it stinks. Or does it?’ »