The Effects Of Drought On The Southern United States

Along with global warming, factors such as population growth and increased demands, inefficient use of water resources, overuse of groundwater, mismanagement of water supply systems, misguided policies, and so on contributed to the occurrence of one of the worst droughts that California is experiencing in 2014-2015, which has a negative impact not only on environment, but also on social and economic sectors of California.

Now Arizona is not the typical state that has a lot of precipitation and rain yearly, but it depends off other reservoirs, lakes, and rivers located in other states to for their water supply. After searching and conducting research, it was found that the main impact Arizona is suffering from the drought is decreasing water levels is from Lake Mead (located in Nevada), and the Colorado River, which flows North to South through several U.S. states. Research and data found shows that the Bureau of Reclamation releases water into the Colorado River below Lake Mead to meet water demands of downstream users in Arizona and California, and also to satisfy treaty obligations to the Republic of Mexico. Findings by the Bureau of Reclamation show that Lake Mead water level’s peaked at 1,214.26 in January of 2000. Almost a decade and a half later, recorded in January 2014, the water levels of Lake Mead are now 1,108.75 (Smith, 2014). This findings show that Arizona is continually getting a decline in water from Lake Mead every month that passes, affects thousands of residents living in Arizona, which already lacks water to begin with. If this continues, this can cause many civilians to both stand by and bare the drought as long as they can, or decide to move out of Arizona to states with a better water supply, so they won’t be burdened with the continual burden of having to ration and conserve water. The state has

Most of us consider drought as a period of dry and hot weather with too little or no rain, and while any or all of these conditions might be existent during drought, the definition of drought is more complex and subtle. According to the United States Geological Survey, California Water Science Center (as cited in Congressional Digest, 2015, p. 2):

California’s continuous drought not only affects California, but essentially impacts the entire food system. Could you imagine an entire state unable to contribute to the growing demands of a thriving economy? As California enters its fifth year of drought the consequences of an ever depleting natural resource, water, continues to negatively impact landscape plants, agricultural production, wildlife, and the economy. The lack of water in California has the potential to have a devastating effect on an ever thriving economy.

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.

California's future will be heavily impacted by this drought if things don’t change. Everything from its economy, to the people, to the physical land itself, is being threatened. According to American Farmland Trust, one eighth of the nation’s agricultural production comes from California: a third of the nation’s vegetables, and almost two thirds of the nation’s fruits and nuts. Agriculture is an enormous industry and is occasionally the only industry in certain parts of the state that is going through a severe drought. It’s impossible to grow crops without water, and it’s impossible to make money from crops that never grew, so in many areas the economy would collapse without sufficient water. American Farmland Trust

Recently, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Ceres have reported that “in Colorado, 92 percent of the wells were in extremely high water stress regions” , a result from “the most extreme drought since measurements began in the early 1900s,” claims researcher Jack Schmidt. Furthermore the U.S Seasonal Drought Outlook released in May

“Drought can best be thought of as a condition of water shortage for a particular user in a particular location” (DWR). Although droughts seem to come unexpectedly they actually form over a long period of time with most of their effects being felt by those dependent on annual rainfall. The Department of Water Resources explains that water reservoirs and groundwater basins are buffers for drought impacts and the drought will not be considered over until these storages have been fully replenished. In the past, California’s “significant multi-year droughts have been ended by an above-average water year where statewide precipitation was in the range of 150 percent average.” (DWR) Recently, California has experienced several consecutive years where rainfall and snowfall were well below average. This problem is important because the lack of precipitation means the state is compelled to

Imagine walking into your house after being outside on a scorching summer’s day. Beads of sweat drip down your face, and you are completely parched. You turn on your faucet for a glass of water, but nothing comes out. This may sound like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie scene, but it can soon become a reality for those living on the west coast. Decades of unsustainable water practices have led to record low levels of water resources across the western states of the United States. Michelle Nijhuis of National Geographic reports that the western states of California, Nevada, and Arizona face a great deal of issues, due to the fact that their past system of water irrigation has become unsustainable. The first main factor behind this

Water control in California has always been problematic. Long drafts and severe floods show the coming of the state’s and world’s changing climate regional differences in water existence and demand for water. “A vast network of storage and conveyance facilities delivers water from the wetter parts of the state to population and farming centers in the Bay area, Southern California and the Sun Joaquin Valley. This network is now threatened by the physical and biological fragility of the system’s hub in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.” (2015) California is also living through one of the worst droughts in

“The Coachella Valley is always operating in a state of drought because it is after all the desert; but here in the valley where our number one industry is tourism there are lush lawns, sprawling golf courses and plenty of fountains” (Angela Monroe “Water Use During Drought in the Desert” Paragraph 3). Drought has affected California, also especially the Coachella Valley, in many ways that cause the state to create precaution for their water districts. The districts in the Coachella Valley can do their part in reducing the impact of the drought by creating more precautions to save water as a community.

Community leaders, California is experiencing the most severe drought in decades, perhaps the worst in the past century. Our current drought has led to fierce wildfires, water shortages and restrictions, and potential loss in the agriculture business. While it has only been four years since the drought began, we have already seen a substantial loss in the body of water California water reservoirs contain. And while hopes for strong precipitation are high, the reality is that we are too deep in our drought to recover with a year or two of strong precipitation. The sad truth is that California uses a vast amount of water each year, varying from public supply and industrial to thermoelectric generators and irrigation systems, all without replenishing

ENSO (El Niño/La Niña Southern Oscillation) has a large effect on climate patterns in Southern California. Long-term precipitation patterns associated with El Niño may have an impact on flooding, mudslides, crop damage, coastal erosion, and fishery damage. Yet, there is some uncertainty as to its effects on drought, if at all. This study attempts to understand the effect of ENSO and Drought by analyzing long-term precipitation, sea surface temperatures, and the Palmer Drought Index data as a function of time for three locations in Southern California. The above data was acquired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the State of California Drought Portal for three ENSO events dating back to 1980 and used to developed

A trouble that is much wider may loom in the next twelve to twenty months without a series wet to very wet winters assisting to boost supplies as even Lake Mead that is usually filled by the River Colorado and an important source for a huge part of Southern California had dwindled to alarmingly low levels by July 2014. It should also be noted that the low levels that were recorded are as a result of much wider and prolonged drought that has been experienced all over the American

The purpose of this article by Diffenbaugh et.al. is to determine how temperature increases due to anthropogenic warming change the probability of precipitation deficits that cause severe drought conditions, and determine what the conditions will look like in the future. They used historical precipitation and temperature data with Palmer Drought Metrics and global climate models to attempt to answer this question. It was found that in the past twenty years, the frequency of drought years has doubled, without any significant change in the trends of precipitation variability. This was attributed to significant increases in positive temperature anomalies causing an increased frequency of precipitation deficits leading to more occurrences of drought years. Global climate modeling suggested that by 2030, the region will transition to a regime where there is a 100% risk that all future dry years will coincide with warmer conditions, increasing the risk of extended drought conditions. This is not the first time this region has experienced prolonged drought conditions. However, it is the first time the drought has been this severe. Since 1977, the per capita water usage has decreased such that in 2013 the water demand is similar to that of 1977, meaning that it will be very difficult to come up with new short-term water conservation ideas.