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California is not in drought

latimes.com

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Re: California is not in drought

#61

Post by mullingitover »

kardianos wrote: post #44
mullingitover wrote: post #43

While the agriculture sector would love cities to go into drought mode and cut back on water usage, let's review a fun fact: agriculture isn't even in the top ten of industries contributing to state GDP[1]. However, agriculture uses 80% of the state's water. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/304869/california-real-g...

Do you eat money?

California isn't big on dietary staple agricultural goods. The five biggest ag businesses are dairy, grapes, almonds, cattle, pistachios, and strawberries, none of which we really need to grow here. They're luxury foods generally. There's not that much that's grown here that couldn't be grown elsewhere.

Re: California is not in drought

#62

Post by Retric »

xyzzyz wrote: post #59
a11r wrote: post #53

The pricing for water in California is highly asymmetric, with urban users paying significantly more (one to two orders of magnitude more) for water than agricultural users. If agricultural users are charged a higher rate (or equivalently the state cuts back on their subsidies ) and "free' rights to water are regulated and distributed more evenly across the population then wasteful use of water will immediately becom…

Agricultural water and municipal drinkable water are two different things. The farm water does not come from the same distribution system as city water. For example, pulling water straight from a river to irrigate farm is agricultural water. Maybe the cost of agricultural water is too low, it probably is at least in some places. However, it is not clear at all that agricultural uses even compete with urban uses. Urba…

Oddly a large majority of the state actually drains into San Francisco Bay Area.

~99% of free flowing water in CA would evaporate or dump in a tiny number of rivers which are tapped for urban water. The only reason many of these watersheds appear separate is 100% of the water is removed long before it enters the ocean. The Kern River being a great example that used to dump into the San Joaquin River but none of that water flows into the ocean today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rivers_of_California

PS: Wells generally tap flowing water even if it’s simply not obvious that’s what’s going on. Basically, the ground can only hold so much water and it normally absorbs excess from rain which eventually flows into streams etc.

Re: California is not in drought

#63

Post by abeppu »

xyzzyz wrote: post #59
a11r wrote: post #53

The pricing for water in California is highly asymmetric, with urban users paying significantly more (one to two orders of magnitude more) for water than agricultural users. If agricultural users are charged a higher rate (or equivalently the state cuts back on their subsidies ) and "free' rights to water are regulated and distributed more evenly across the population then wasteful use of water will immediately becom…

Agricultural water and municipal drinkable water are two different things. The farm water does not come from the same distribution system as city water. For example, pulling water straight from a river to irrigate farm is agricultural water. Maybe the cost of agricultural water is too low, it probably is at least in some places. However, it is not clear at all that agricultural uses even compete with urban uses. Urba…

Drawing the distinction between municipal drinkable water and agricultural water is useful. But in the Central Valley, my understanding is that farms are heavily reliant on well water, and their use pushes the level of the aquifer down in a way that disrupts the supply of drinking water. In some cases, there is a direct competition between agricultural use and residential use, but not necessarily "urban" use.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/28/californ...

Re: California is not in drought

#64

Post by javajosh »

rsj_hn wrote: post #40
slavoingilizov wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly do wells and cisterns prevent wildfires? Like many others this technology treats the symptom and doesn’t solve the problem.

The technology to prevent wildfires is controlled burns. The Ohlone indians would regularly do controlled burns, reducing the density of trees by 90%. A combination of anti-controlled burn mentality, building expensive homes in forested areas, and an antipathy to "greedy loggers" has turned California into a tinderbox waiting to go off. The state needs to liquidate 90% of its forests ASAP, because reducing carbon emi…

Would it be a good idea to log the trees and drop them in a bog, or the equivalent, so that the carbon isn't released into the atmosphere?

Re: California is not in drought

#65

Post by dqv »

kemiller wrote: post #47
npsimons wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beef and dairy use more water, use more land, generate more GHG[0]. Deal with animal agriculture first, then we can talk about the fruits and nuts. [0] - https://www.truthordrought.com/almond-milk-myths

The water and land that they use isn't necessarily useful for other crops. Marginal pasture land can't be magically turned into cropland but almond orchards can.

Sure but the 77.3 million acres to grow the plants we eat pales in comparison to the 781 million acres we use for animal agriculture.[0] Why turn almond orchards into cropland when we can just use less of the land we use for animal production and turn that into cropland? I highly doubt all 781 million acres can only be used for animal grazing.

[0]: https://extension.oregonstate.edu/bloomberg-illustrates-how-...

Re: California is not in drought

#66

Post by digitalsushi »

tuatoru wrote: post #58
s1artibartfast wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is poor logic influenced by the politics of the LA aqueduct and water project. Nuts are calorie dense, and most foods require as much if not more water per calorie. Food simply requires a lot of water. For example, A 5 oz glass of wine takes 34 gallons. A head of iceberg lettuce takes 16 gallons of water. You will note that the motherJones article compares almond water things like home use, not other food source…

This is also poor logic. Nuts are not a calorie crop, they are a relatively high-cost garnish/flavouring. A snack size serving of almonds is around 20 of them, representing about 20 gallons. A side dish of lettuce is probably about half of one, 8 gallons. That said, California's water is probably best used in high value add industries like semiconductor manufacturing.

I believe I read once that it takes about 920 gallons of water to make 1 gallon of almond milk.

edit: i am apparently worse than an almond milk drinker, since coffee uses even more water at 1,056:1.

and learning even more, cow-milk is about 2000 gallons of water to make a gallon of milk!

so i really have no idea about any of this and its all surprising

https://shamelesshousewife.wordpress.com/tag/how-much-water-...

Re: California is not in drought

#67

Post by refurb »

mullingitover wrote: post #61
kardianos wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you eat money?

California isn't big on dietary staple agricultural goods. The five biggest ag businesses are dairy, grapes, almonds, cattle, pistachios, and strawberries, none of which we really need to grow here. They're luxury foods generally. There's not that much that's grown here that couldn't be grown elsewhere.

Exactly. We could all eat drought resistant oats for each meal with a shot of essential vitamins and minerals. Very efficient and green!

Re: California is not in drought

#68

Post by tzs »

testfoobar wrote: post #41

We use a lot of water growing nuts in California. From 2015: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/almonds-nuts... "it takes about a gallon of water to grow one almond, and nearly five gallons to produce a walnut. Residents across the state are being told to take shorter showers and stop watering their lawns, but the acreage devoted to the state’s almond orchards have doubled in the past decade. The amount…

That gallon of water to grow one almond or the 5 gallons for one walnut obviously does not actually end up in that almond or walnut. Only a tiny amount of water is in the nut itself, and so exported from the state when the nut is exported.

Some of it will end up in the ground and eventually become part of the water table in that region, eventually coming back out via wells to be reused.

A lot of it will be transpired into the air by the plant. Some of that will condense out and end up in the ground. The winds in those areas tend to blow toward the Sierra Nevada mountains to the east. I suspect a lot of that water ends up rain on the west side of those mountains, where much of it makes its way back to the farming regions.

Some will be broken down in chemical reactions in the plant, with the H and O being combined with other elements to form various compounds. It would take someone with a much more extensive knowledge of plant biology than I have to say what happens to those compounds and if any of the H and O used for them ends up as water again later.

I've never seen any analysis that actually looks at where the water goes after the nut is produced.

Re: California is not in drought

#69

Post by greatgoat420 »

rsj_hn wrote: post #40
slavoingilizov wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly do wells and cisterns prevent wildfires? Like many others this technology treats the symptom and doesn’t solve the problem.

The technology to prevent wildfires is controlled burns. The Ohlone indians would regularly do controlled burns, reducing the density of trees by 90%. A combination of anti-controlled burn mentality, building expensive homes in forested areas, and an antipathy to "greedy loggers" has turned California into a tinderbox waiting to go off. The state needs to liquidate 90% of its forests ASAP, because reducing carbon emi…

I don't live in CA, and I have no real knowledge of logging, could you explain more about the "greedy loggers" comment? I get that controlled burns are good, but is CA usually known for forests used for lumber? I thought most lumber was grown in the northern parts of America.

Re: California is not in drought

#70

Post by zamfi »

greatgoat420 wrote: post #69
rsj_hn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technology to prevent wildfires is controlled burns. The Ohlone indians would regularly do controlled burns, reducing the density of trees by 90%. A combination of anti-controlled burn mentality, building expensive homes in forested areas, and an antipathy to "greedy loggers" has turned California into a tinderbox waiting to go off. The state needs to liquidate 90% of its forests ASAP, because reducing carbon emi…

I don't live in CA, and I have no real knowledge of logging, could you explain more about the "greedy loggers" comment? I get that controlled burns are good, but is CA usually known for forests used for lumber? I thought most lumber was grown in the northern parts of America.

Much of California’s forest was clear cut by the logging industry in the 1800s. The “old growth forests” are preserved and form a tiny fraction of what once was.

California is no longer as big a source of lumber as it once was.

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