11 Trillion Gallons of Water Needed To End California Drought

mrflash818 points out a new study which found that California can recover from its lengthy drought with a mere 11 trillion gallons of water. The volume this water would occupy (roughly 42 cubic kilometers) is half again as large as the biggest water reservoir in the U.S. A team of JPL scientists worked this out through the use of NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites. From the article: GRACE data reveal that, since 2011, the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins decreased in volume by four trillion gallons of water each year (15 cubic kilometers). That's more water than California's 38 million residents use each year for domestic and municipal purposes. About two-thirds of the loss is due to depletion of groundwater beneath California's Central Valley. ... New drought maps show groundwater levels across the U.S. Southwest are in the lowest two to 10 percent since 1949.

Comments

Re:"Michigan, give us your water!"

[TheEyes]

Those wetlands you're disparaging are flood control systems. Those wetlands keep the rain from flowing straight out into the ocean; part of the reason we're in this mess now is that we've spent the last 100 years plowing them into the ground and pouring concrete over them (see: LA river).

Re:But but but

[wiredlogic]

Surely there is a technological fix for this?

Stop growing vegetables in an arid valley and replant the massive amount of fallow land in wetter parts of the country.

how much it will cost to desalinate water?

[SergeyKurdakov6434]

Let's exercise how much it might cost to desalinate water

best current tech to desalinate water is about $0.5 per cubic meter

11 trillion gallons ~ 42 cubic km of water or 42 billion cubic meters

thus the sum required is 21 billion dollars.

given that there are reasons to think that cost might be reduced - the solution looks costly but hardly unmanageable

Re:But but but

[Applehu Akbar]

Apply some of that massive Silicon Valley brainpower to developing large-scale desalination instead of the next batch of faddish social media apps.

Re: But but but

[Shakrai]

I've looked at the San Francisco annul rainfall for the past 150 years, and this drought was no more severe than the last few in the early 90s and late 70s, among other droughts.

You're forgetting how weather reporting has become as sensationalized as every other aspect of journalism. Cheat sheet to modern TV meteorology:

1) Every unusually cold spell is the result of a polar vortex.
2) Every severe weather event is the result of anthropologic climate change.
3) The only proper way to cover a tropical cyclone is to have a guy standing on a sea wall in a rain coat. Bonus points if you can barely understand him due to the effects of wind on his microphone.
4) Buzzwords poorly understood by the broader population (this includes most meteorologists and practically all of the ones on television) must be thrown in to consume airtime. See Item #1 and add "El Niño" and "La Niña" to the list.