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California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

latimes.com

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Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#241

Post by willturman »

floatrock wrote: post #223
willturman wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, of course, those natural wildfires started by downed power infrastructure [1], bullets [2], and campfires on red flag days [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Fire [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldor_Fire [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis_Fire

Yes, of course human activity causes some fires. Now do all the other ones started by lightning and lets have a complete list.

Why would I collect the list of the things that I'm specifically not talking about?

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#242

Post by asdff »

WalterBright wrote: post #107

In other arid areas, people use terracing on hills so the water runoff is slowed and the water can soak into the aquifers. Also, dikes are built around fields to hold the water and also let it soak into the ground. Are these done in California?

There has been quite a lot of investment in spreading grounds, aquifer recharging, and stormwater capture. Last year, LA county recaptured enough water to meet the yearly water needs of 2.4 million people.

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#243

Post by kyboren »

kriskrunch wrote: post #151
kyboren wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the California Coastal Commission put the kibosh a few years ago on a decades-long desalination project: https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/05/california-desali... I haven't heard of any new desalination projects making headway since. The cost-benefit analysis may favor it, but I'm not sure the politics do. Of course, those politics will probably change in 10-15 years in our next big drought cycle, and the…

Doheny was approved shortly after the Huntington Beach desal plant was killed. Update from last month: https://www.ocregister.com/2025/11/26/landfill-trash-could-h... Poseidon currently runs a desal plant in Carlsbad. My understanding is that the water the plant releases into the ocean requires exemptions for how concentrated it is. Additionally, the plant draws plankton filled water. Not really what we want in Calif…

I wasn't aware of the Doheny project, thanks! But it seems that that project timeline is at least as long as the one CCC killed.

With these kinds of timelines and that kind of regulatory risk, I don't think large-scale desalination is going to fix California's drought issues, regardless of whether it could.

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#244

Post by lithocarpus »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #217
Jensson wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drought doesn't mean "abnormally dry" though, it means lack of rain resulting in water shortage. And California has had a lot of water shortages.

I think what he is getting at is : deserts are already dry, what makes a drought in the desert? It isn't just, a lot of people moved to the desert, so now there is a drought because there isn't enough water. I don't have reference, but I think there is some definition around change from average. Drought it something like X months with Y% less precipitation than last 5 year average. or some such calculation.

If you have a fertile abundant landscape covered in old growth forests and marshes, and then cut all the forests, put roads everywhere, and plough up the marshes for farming, the landscape then holds a lot less water and the weather becomes less stable, which can exacerbate natural fluctuations in rainfall and temperature making droughts more common and more severe.

This is effectively what happened to large parts of the middle east that were once fertile and lush. It's a trend all over the world really.

There are many ways humans can work the opposite direction to increase the ability of the land to stabilize the weather and increase hydrological robustness to mitigate droughts, e.g. regenerative agriculture or projects in asia and africa to green the desert, I don't know enough about them but it's a good idea and I hope it's executed well.

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#245

Post by lithocarpus »

ifwinterco wrote: post #207

This might be a stupid question, but if "drought" means "abnormally dry" yet an area is in "drought" 90% of the time, does that not just mean the definition of drought is wrong? It would be more accurate to say that dry periods in california are just "normal weather" and the occasional wet periods are the abnormal weather. I enjoy the rare periods when it's sunny in the UK, but I wouldn't refer to a typical cloudy pe…

If you have a fertile abundant landscape covered in old growth forests and marshes, and then cut all the forests, put roads everywhere, and plough up the marshes for farming, the landscape then holds a lot less water and the weather becomes less stable, which can exacerbate natural fluctuations in rainfall and temperature making droughts more common and more severe.

This is effectively what happened to large parts of the middle east that were once fertile and lush. It's a trend all over the world really.

There are many ways humans can work the opposite direction to increase the ability of the land to stabilize the weather and increase hydrological robustness to mitigate droughts, e.g. regenerative agriculture or projects in asia and africa to green the desert, I don't know enough about them but it's a good idea and I hope it's executed well.

The idea that California is now "free of drought" is funny, it may be technically correct by the way the word drought is used, but it doesn't mean the underlying factors that contributed to the likelihood and severity of recent decades of drought have improved - it just means we got a lot of precipitation now, but another dry year and we'll be back in drought again.

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#246

Post by mrguyorama »

vee-kay wrote: post #188

Isn't this the same state where the rich people water their plush lawns even in the peak of summer during drought? And where 90% of the water for its huge capital city-district (Los Angeles) is not even sourced locally (say, by desalination of seawater, as it is a coastal city), but it's instead piped from hundreds of miles away, while banning the villages at the source locations from using the local rivers/lakes as…

No, this is the state where the vast vast vast majority of water is used in incredibly inefficient agricultural practices because those consumers were allocated water "Rights" in a stupid system over a hundred years ago and have never had to pay market rates for water and are therefore not incentivized to do anything to not waste water.

Instead, factions are heavily incentivized, by the way that water rights system works, to spend millions insisting that Californians must use an even smaller fraction of the state's water budget than they already do.

The state needs to reform those water rights.

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#247

Post by mrguyorama »

dcrazy wrote: post #171
Izikiel43 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I'm not saying they don't, but it isn't a critical crop for day to day life, biologically speaking. No one is going to die for not eating almonds. Is it economically important? For sure. Is it critical for living? No.

We don’t decide what to grow based on what someone decides is “critical for living.” We decide what to grow based on what sells for a decent margin above cost. Some countries in the Eastern Hemisphere tried the first way and it didn’t work out very well.

Municipal water users subsidize the growth of those almonds because of a water rights system that was imagined when California was mostly empty.

Agricultural users should be free to pay market rates for their water like everyone else. They will absolutely still be able to make a profit growing almonds since they basically own the market.

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#248

Post by FrustratedMonky »

lithocarpus wrote: post #244
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what he is getting at is : deserts are already dry, what makes a drought in the desert? It isn't just, a lot of people moved to the desert, so now there is a drought because there isn't enough water. I don't have reference, but I think there is some definition around change from average. Drought it something like X months with Y% less precipitation than last 5 year average. or some such calculation.

If you have a fertile abundant landscape covered in old growth forests and marshes, and then cut all the forests, put roads everywhere, and plough up the marshes for farming, the landscape then holds a lot less water and the weather becomes less stable, which can exacerbate natural fluctuations in rainfall and temperature making droughts more common and more severe. This is effectively what happened to large parts of…

All I'm saying is that people or no people, wet or dry, there is an actual calculation and a drought scale. The conversation seems to be wanting to place 'blame', but you can have droughts anywhere, under a lot of conditions (like people moved in) for lots of reasons.

I looked it up

Calculating drought involves comparing current conditions (precipitation, temperature, soil moisture, water levels) to historical norms using standardized indices like the Palmer Drought Index (PDSI) or the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), which measure water supply/demand imbalances over short or long periods to assign severity levels (e.g., D0 Abnormally Dry to D4 Exceptional Drought).

A common method uses indices that turn negative as drought intensifies, with thresholds indicating different drought stages, often combined with expert analysis for the official U.S. Drought Monitor.

Common Drought Indices

Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI):

Uses precipitation, temperature, and soil moisture. Calculates water supply and demand. Values: Below -0.5 indicates drought; below -2.0 is moderate.

Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI):

Focuses on precipitation deficits at various timescales (e.g., 1, 3, 6 months). Classifies drought: e.g., -1.0 to -1.49 is Moderate, -2.0 or less is Extreme.

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#249

Post by telesilla »

ifwinterco wrote: post #207

This might be a stupid question, but if "drought" means "abnormally dry" yet an area is in "drought" 90% of the time, does that not just mean the definition of drought is wrong? It would be more accurate to say that dry periods in california are just "normal weather" and the occasional wet periods are the abnormal weather. I enjoy the rare periods when it's sunny in the UK, but I wouldn't refer to a typical cloudy pe…

.. loosely inspired by the California water wars—early 20th-century conflicts over water rights that enabled Los Angeles to access resources from the Owens Valley.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown_(1974_film)

.. By 1926, Owens Lake was completely dry due to water diversion

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