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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.
It's about 0.37% of Lake Superior...
Anyway... according to the news and Google they've received about 10Trillion gallons of rain in the past 10 days SO guess problem solved ;-)
Make something free (or nearly so), and people will use lots of it. CA's water problem is by no means insoluble.
1. Figure out how much water the state can sustainably use.
2. Set a price for water usage. Set a flat price for all users, residential, commercial, industrial. No reason that some users of water should get it more cheaply than others.
3. If usage remains above the level determine in #1, raise the price.
4. Repeat process until usage falls to the level determined in #1.
Of course, this process would likely result in a big chunk of the unsustainable agriculture in CA going under, but so be it - basing a business on the assumption that you'll get continued massive discounts on a key input isn't particularly wise planning, and there's no reason why other CA water users should be forced to subsidize those businesses.
Like not enough drinking water for everyone? This not at all what is happening. It's unsustainable agriculture, excessive urban landscaping and lastly, perhaps a need to adjust some social norms. People didn't take daily showers through most of human history.
New drought maps show groundwater levels across the U.S. Southwest are in the lowest two to 10 percent since 1949.
The remaining bits, in certain areas, will be poisoned by fracking
Suddenly this article makes sense.
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
The Bush family buys 100,000 acres over one of the World's largest fresh water aquifers.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
By my calculation at 47 cents per 100 gallons (which is retail in CA), it would cost about $51 billion to end the drought.
The low end of desalination is $1/cubic meter which would cost about 41 billion while the high end of desalination is about
$2/cubic meter which would cost about 80 billion. I believe those numbers are drinking water too so you could probably
take some shortcuts if all you're doing is filling up a reserve.
40-80 billion is a big number but is fairly managable if depreciated over the life of the desalination plants of say 20 years.
If things get desperate enough, desalination plants are more than capable of providing the water. The main problem
with desalination plants is that they are a risky investment. If the drought ever does end then you are basically
priced out of the market and you have these big expensive desalination plants collecting dust until the next drought.