Most of the desert is not under cultivation, excepting the imperial valley. I should have said the vast majority of cultivated and inhabited land. Semi-arid is not the same as desert. Much of California gets multiple times the precipitation of a true desert like Phoenix. We have water to work with and we don’t need to adopt the same strategies as desert cities.
There is a lot of work to be done, no doubt, but the law passed in 2014 requires each water district to come up with a plan to stop depleting ground water in the next few years.
There are solutions but I think we should focus on better infrastructure, higher efficiency, more desalination, groundwater recharge, etc. over water austerity. Water is a requirement of all life and pretending we aren’t going to need any is a fantasy.
Most of the desert is not under cultivation, excepting the imperial valley. I should have said the vast majority of cultivated and inhabited land. Semi-arid is not the same as desert. Much of California gets multiple times the precipitation of a true desert like Phoenix. We have water to work with and we don’t need to adopt the same strategies as desert cities.
There is a lot of work to be done, no doubt, but the law passed in 2014 requires each water district to come up with a plan to stop depleting ground water in the next few years.
There are solutions but I think we should focus on better infrastructure, higher efficiency, more desalination, groundwater recharge, etc. over water austerity. Water is a requirement of all life and pretending we aren’t going to need any is a fantasy.