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:11 Trillion Gallons of Water Needed to Water Ri

[PopeRatzo]

Actually, the main crop that is quite profitable but requires vast amounts of water is not rice, but nuts, specifically Almonds.

I like almonds, but they kind of bind me up, you know? We make almond milk and add some flax oil and then use the almond pulp to make delicious cakes. It's better that way. If you put some ground flax seed in with the almond pulp, it makes you shit like a goose so it all works out.

I think the fact that I know these things is a sign I'm getting old. Oh well.