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Drought and Desertification: How Robots Might Help
Hallie Siegel writes Groundwater levels in California's Central Valley are down to historic lows and reservoirs have been depleted following four consecutive years of severe drought in the state. California is set to introduce water rationing in the coming weeks, and though the new rationing rules will focus on urban areas and not farms for the time being, they serve as a warning bell to farmers who will inevitably need to adapt to the effects of climate change on food production. John Payne argues that long term solutions are needed to help make agriculture drought resistant and looks at some of the ways that robotics might help.
create a pipeline from the PNW down to southern CA. done.
of course it'd be expensive, but this is either an emergency, or it isn't. at least there aren't (as many) environmental concerns as there are for oil pipelines. if it leaks / breaks you get a ... water spill?
This reminds me of the Horizons ride at EPCOT ages ago. One of their three ecosystems to be tamed was a desert wasteland, and how advanced robots would mine/farm the land. These robots could detect rain, air pressure, and everything!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=...
"A 'person' is smart. 'People' are dumb, panicky animals and you know that."
Perhaps, instead of robots, they should look at fixing their leaky pipes (Bay Area loses billions of gallons to leaky pipes) or sending, so efficiently, most of their rainwater back into the ocean (How to fix California's drought problem) before they spend billions building desalination plants (Drinking the Pacific).
You need some droids that understand the binary language of vaporators to keep the moisture farms in operation. Once you have that, the water problem is solved!
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
If your whole ability to farm in the region depends on bringing water from ever further away or draining the underground resources maybe it's a sign that you really haven't picked the best spot to build your farm.
Much of California is a mix of desert, grassland, and chaparral in its natural state. It wouldn't require any water or irrigation. The reason California has an insatiable appetite for water is because people insist on farming there, often with thirsty crops; and farming happens in California because water is effectively heavily subsidized. The solution to California's water problems is simple: have California farmers pay market rates for water and stop subsidizing farmers.
...and almost never discussed: return to herd-based agriculture, to mimic the pre-human massive herds of herbivores that crossed the plains that are desertifying.
http://www.ted.com/talks/allan...
Watch it, and tell me you're not convinced.
-Styopa
yes they can, but when they lose, they kill you.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
The severity of this current "drought" is largely due to the incompetent fools in Sacramento putting the environmental whackos agenda over the needs of human beings to eat, wash and water. No new reservoirs, no new aqueducts, and they have dramatically drained large reservoirs to provide an unprecedented environment for the "delta" smelt, which is just like every other smelt in the ocean but only able to live in semi salty delta waters. If we had had a bunch of conservatives running the state, we would have built a massive aquarium that the public could enjoy and filled it with a sustainable population of the delta smelt, and kept our reservoir levels high so that we would have potable water when we have a drought.
People forget that we live in a first wold country (despite the best efforts of the environmentalists) and the government still has a few things that they actually must provide and if they fuck it up, things can go very badly for them. Gray Davis fucked up electricity, and he got his ass handed to him. When we start seriously rationing water and people can't flush their toilets, Jerry "rainbow" Brown is going to get similar treatment. There are few things that can actually end civilized society, one is energy and one is water. Then we will get a republican elected, and they will do the above, build 10-20 more reservoirs, maybe pass a few laws requiring a public vote to divert water for environmental purposes, and if need be, build a big fucking aqueduct up to Oregon and Washington to pull down some of the 200 inches a year they get in western Oregon... The solution is technology and forward thinking, not the environmental whacko mud hut mentality that we have in office right now.
http://www.ted.com/talks/allan...
A guy who killed elephants in the name of science changed his mind and brought back the green.
I'm seriously interested in people shooting this down, because if that's the fix = then vegans are Nazis and the world will benefit from cheap meat.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
[whisper] Let the killbot win [/whisper]
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The climate was ideal for growing almonds for a long time. Ripping the trees out at the first big drought could be a mistake. If the drought finally breaks the next year, your trees will be gone, and it will take 5 years before new trees are producing a good amount of fruit.
solar powered robots running around spraying just the right amount of water on each plant right when the needed it, not too much and not too little.
We already have a much cheaper version of this. It's called drip irrigation.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC