Importance Of Groundwater In California

Undoubtedly, Groundwater plays a significant role in California water supply. During a normal year, 30% of the state 's water supply comes from groundwater. In times of extreme drought, groundwater consumption can rise to 60% or more. Even though groundwater is more evenly distributed, over half of the groundwater is unable to be extracted due to the high pumping cost. The largest groundwater reservoirs are found in the Central Valley, with the majority of the supply existing as runoff that seeps into the aquifer.

California has always had a warm climate, yet its supply of water has rarely been affected. In 2014 California’s water shortage issue truly began. Due to low amounts of snow in the winter in recent years, California has tried to equal out these shortages by drilling water from underground aquifers. Yet, underground aquifers recharge much slower than surface water sources. California has already made significant drawbacks to attempt to limit the amount of water they use, so these aquifers can recharge. But still resources continue going down and the Central Valley Aquifer’s water level is rapidly declining. Luckily, on April 7, 2017 the drought stage of emergency in California was ended. Yet the issue isn’t truly resolved. Glen MacDonald

My opinion is that California should not regulate groundwater because of farmers and financially. A Farmer would need more water for their crops, animals , accordingly themselves. That is a large amount of water , I do not think that is fair because what would happen if the farmers ran out of water ;they would have to use other residents water. Farmers would have to buy less pickups,employing less people, moreover buying less tractors.In source 1 it says that “the Farmers feel very disconnected with the

What that says about California’s ground water as a whole is that it is depleting. Ground water has always been an alternative source of water in times of drought, however the continuous use of ground water is having a negative impact on the California landscape. For instance, an article posted on Thinkprogress.org, discussing the, issues of ground water and drilling concluded that, “Deep drilling is beginning to mar the California landscape, lowering water tables and causing the ground to sink” (Geiling).

Groundwater is one of the most important natural resource in the nation, specifically in the Central Valley. In California, many people are pumping a lot more water because of the California drought and groundwater is a good resource for the farmers to harvest their crops. However, the main issue today is that in the Central Valley is that the land is sinking faster and faster due to the demand of pumping more water from the ground. The ground sinking in California isn’t recent, but it has been going an ongoing issue for over decades. Therefore, the land sinking has background history, but many studies and researchers didn 't take it as a warning until recently, and as a result it has been getting worse. The land sinking occurring in the Central Valley can cause damages to our communities such as bridges and roads cracking and can even go as far as cracking irrigation canals. These damages can cost millions of dollars to recover and rebuilding damages. On the other hand, the ground sinking has already destroyed canal linings, which will cost millions of dollars to repair. With that being the case, imagine all the other damages that the ground sinking will cause and cost to fix them. For these reasons, the state of California needs to start finding possible solutions to prevent the ground sinking from further sinking and to prevent more damages to the Central Valley. Solutions that might include encouraging the community to

Should California regulate groundwater? In my opinion, I think that farmers shouldn’t be able to get water from underground because other farmers are sucking up all the underground water. I had read an article that was talking about if they should let farmers be able to get water from underground. The article’s that I have read was that they think they shouldn’t because farmers would get gallons of water from underground. The state should regulate groundwater.

Due to the lack of rain in the past few years, and particularly in the last few months, California faces severe drought. This is the worst drought in more than one hundred years. The impact of California drought affects community, agriculture, organic ranchers, and dairy farmers. Because of these facts, the United States must rethink the way it uses water. Californians alone are asked to reduce their water usage by twenty percent to prevent water waste.

Californians have been struggling with trying to conserve our water for over three years. Twenty-Thirteen was our driest year in many populated areas in California, and it doesn't seem to be changing any time soon, unless we all act now. In twenty-thirteen, Los Angeles and Sacramento, went down on record as the driest two cities in California. A drought is when area of land scarcely drop rain. Droughts are caused from climate changes and lack of precipitation, resulting in a shortage of water. Water is vital for all living things and is the essential component of all life. This ongoing drought has drastically affected the state of California. The long-term change in climate is truly affecting California. Our water reservations are lower than

For centuries, various civilizations have developed several methods to redirect water from its source to a specified locations. Early Egyptians used a shaduf to lift buckets of water from rivers and as the need to divert water further away from groundwater sources, the more sophisticated the methods became. The Romans built extensive quanats to deliver a fresh water supply while providing a sewage system. Ounce urbanization ensued, the demand for water would require this resource to travel hundreds of miles to reach its destination. Aqueducts, canals, ditches, and dams are all used today to transport water from areas who have an abundance of potable water to areas that lack drinkable water. This was exemplified in the short film “Water on the Edge”. The film addresses the many problems California faces after decades of using various methods for water diversion. Some of the problems include outdated watering systems, maintaining the health of natural systems, and providing water throughout the state while in a drought.

Thomas Fuller once said “we never know the worth of water till the well is dry” (Fuller). As a species we need water to cook, clean, and most importantly live. With water being a natural resource overuse and misuses of it can cause its supply to rapidly dwindle down, and that’s exactly what’s happening in California right now. California's water comes a married of places such as aquifers, groundwater, surface water, rivers, reservoirs, dams and irrigation systems where 80% of that water goes towards agriculture and 20% to urban/residential use. California’s water supply is so substandard that the state can’t even say their predicament is a drought, but it can be classified as a crisis. And to add insult to injury the states infrastructure has

The drought in California has presented some controversial and difficult issues for the residents of the state. Due to the lack of rain and fresh water the state has began, with no regulation, pumping irreplaceable groundwater to aid the drought. This is an out of sight crisis considering it is invisible in the average persons life. Furthermore, as long as residents are continuing to have access to water in their homes and work places the crisis is largely out of sight out of mind. However,

The state of California may run out of groundwater in as little as ten years. California is dependent on groundwater, and without it, it would be thrown into a statewide water crisis. So far, people do not know about this problem or do not care or believe in it. The state of California must prevent groundwater overuse by regulating groundwater use, making regulations telling farmers when and how to

So. here’s the facts: in the last four years, there has been an average 33% increase in household water prices, many Californian farmers have had to tear out their orchards and let their crops lie fallow, and the ground is a dull, parched brown. We know these things, and we also know why: the drought, of course. 2013 was the driest year in Californian record, and "the drought of 2014 is shaping up to be worse. Several of the state's critical reservoirs - Folsom, Lake Oroville, and San Luis - are at lower levels for this time of year than they were in 1977... And the state's depleted reservoirs must serve a population that has more than doubled from 18 million in 1977 to 38 million today." (Association of California Water Agencies, 2014 Drought Fact Sheet)

Whether in the Americas, Africa, or Asia, droughts and floods have long been part of the cycle of rural life (Hiscock 67). California, home to more than 38 million people, has just recently entered the fourth year of one of the state 's worst droughts in the past century, one that 's led to fierce wildfires, water shortages and restrictions, and potentially staggering agricultural losses. In the next few pages, we will go over the history of the drought, the issues the drought has caused, what California is doing to conserve water, and a long term possible solution to what is being called a “water crisis”.

With an everlasting reputation of droughts, California has caused their citizens to struggle through their droughts in exchange of money. Peaking at 34 billion dollars in revenue in 2013, California means business when it comes to agriculture. California is in fact the largest agricultural producing state in meaning a large amount of water from the state is going towards irrigation systems. As a result, the amount of land and water used has a huge impact towards the state of California physically. If California’s agriculture business continues as it is now, the little amount of ground water they have will cease sooner than it should naturally. By creating a new irrigation system for farmers, the state can have more water to use for citizens and allow their aquifers to rest.