On the heart (center) of California is a flat area with miles and miles of farms and up to 230 different crops. The central valley agriculture is essential to the United States; it not only delivers almost half of the produce but also helps the economy by also giving more job opportunities (California Department of food and agriculture, 2014). Many families depend on the central valley agriculture to survive economically in the United States. It is a well-known fact that rain and snows in the Sierra Nevada Mountains are a very important element in the central valley. No rain in the central valley can cause many devastating issues to occur quickly. Recently in the year of 2013 California received less rainfall than years before. The small amount of water the central valley is receiving is harming not only to the land but humans and animals as well. It’s destroying the habitats of animals with forest fires caused from the dry spells occurring. The central valley is going through a drought, so much that around this time of year the central valley usually accumulates enough rain for the necessities in the valley, agriculture for example. This year, however, has been different, the central valley hasn’t received enough water and this has caused a drought in the valley. Water is an important element in this world for not only human life, but for the environment in general, a shortage of water supply can bring issues to the environment and those living in it. The central valley holds the largest percent of class one soil, not only that, the valley grows a third of all the produce being grown in the United States, that’s more than 230 crops that are being grown in the central valley. However, this drought isn’t only affecting the resident...
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• California Department of food and agriculture (2014). California Agricultural Production Statistics Retrieved from http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/statistics/
California Farm Water Coalition. (2014). Learn More About 2014 Drought Impacts Retried from http://new.farmwater.org/new/learn-more-about-2014-drought-impacts/
• Campbell E., Durisin M. (2014). California Farms Going Thirsty as Drought Burns $5 Billion Hole. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-29/california-farms-going-thirsty-as-drought-burns-5-billion-hole.html
• The National Drought Mitigation Center. (2014). Types of Drought Impacts Retrieved from http://drought.unl.edu/DroughtforKids/HowDoesDroughtAffectOurLives/TypesofDroughtImpacts.aspx
Sheshadri, T. (2001, December 26). Student recognized for agricultural acumen. The San Diego Union Tribune, N1-4. Retrieved on March 20, 2002 from Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe (Newspapers) on the World Wide Web: http://www.lexisnexis.com/universe.htm.
The California water drought has been declared a crisis by the governor of California. 2013 was the driest year on record, and California could be running out of water. Californians should be water wise, and their use, or no use, of water will have an enormous impact on this drought. They can use the techniques published in a recent Time article called, 5 Ways to Bust California’s Drought, to reduce their water use. Landscape techniques, alternate water sources, and the personal conservation of water can reduce the use of water, and can have a positive change on this water crisis.
The Great Basin of North America and Wyoming specifically, is known for its arid and semi-arid environment, as well as prolonged and sometimes severe droughts. Drought is the prolonged and abnormal deficiency of moisture with the concomitant decline in runoff to a level significantly lower than usual (Guldin 1989). The history of droughts in Wyoming has been uncertain in the past, but recent studies of tree rings in the Big Horn Basin of Wyoming have given insight to droughts as far back as 1260A.D. (Gray et al. 2004). Looking at tree ring records in Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and limber pine (Pinus flexilis) trees, Stephen Gray and his colleagues discovered that droughts which have been experienced in Wyoming since the 1750's, are weak in severity and length when compared to those since. The most severe drought period in Wyoming’s history occurred from 1262 to 1281. The droughts of the 1930’s and 1950’s, which have been used as benchmarks for all other droughts in the United States in recent times (Woodhouse et al. 2002), are ranked 149th and 28th respectively in comparison (Gray et al. 2004). The five top ranking droughts for 10, 15, and 20 year periods are all prior to the 1800’s, with the four driest single years being 1263, 1274, 1278, and 1280 (Gray et al. 2004). This indicates a change in precipitation patterns in the Big Horn Basin area of Wyoming since the 18th century, as all recent droughts have been mild when compared to those of Wyoming’s past.
Currently, the United States is the largest producer of corn in the world. In 2010, it produced 32% of the world’s corn crop. Corn is grown on approximately 400,000 U.S. farms, showing the importance of corn in the United States’ diets. Twenty percent of the corn produced is exported and corn grown for grain accounts for almost one quarter of the harvested crop acres in this country (National Corn Grower's Associatio...
Hembreee, Brandon. "Southwest Could See Continuation of Drought." Southwest Farm Press 40.3 17 January 2013: 1-7. Web.
Soil, climate and 118 different types of farms. California produced 300 different types of nuts, fruits, and vegetables and had specialization farms for canning or drying fruits. Farming in the 20th century started becoming
Americans today tend to believe that the Colorado River drought has been a recent occurrence, although drought relief strategies have been implemented since early 1997. To summarize, in the book The Colorado River Basin Drought Planning and Organizations, Colorado is named as the original state to acquire a drought relief plan. For instance, various assume water levels are diminutive in the Colorado and blame is due to the previous ten years of drought throughout the United States. Although it is true that water levels are at a record low, initial plans in the early 1920’s to introduce manufactured structures into the water basin is the original reason Colorado’s water system began to be compromised. It follows, then the supplementary natural
Zara Beadle METR 113 16 December 2015 Final paper California Drought The California drought has been extremely harmful to the states’ air quality. Since 2012, California has seen the worst drought conditions in 1,200 years and it is severely affecting air quality (California’s drought, 2015). As of 2015, the cities of Hanford, Merced, Modesto, Fresno, Yuba City, Lancaster-Palmdale, Chico, Sacramento, and Bakersfield have experienced exceptional drought coverage (Pestano, 2015).
For about five years California has experienced above average temperatures and a lack of rain. This lack of rain and snowfall has caused California to become increasingly dry, starting arguments over whose right to water is more important and who needs to be more mindful with their use of water. Farming in California truly began during the gold rush when water was redirected to land where food was grown for those looking for gold (Siegler, 2015). The farmers that have stayed on that land now have senior water rights (“Water wars”, 2015). Farmers that settled their land before 1914 are those with senior water rights (Terrell, 2015). Governor Jerry Brown has called for a cut in water use by one-quarter percent to people living
From the 16.5 MAF of groundwater pumped annually in the state of California, 39% will be used for agriculture, 41% will be used in the urban sector, while 18% will be used to manage the state’s wetlands (DWR 2015). The Central Valley alone uses 74% of all extracted groundwater, where the Tulare Lake Hydrologic Region is the greatest groundwater user (DWR 2015). Since the state’s topography and hydrological conditions vary throughout the state, the amount of precipitation that the state receives will vary. Some areas lack access to enough water to meet water demands, so the state and federal water projects help by importing water. When the amount of surface water from the state and federal water projects does not fully meet local water demands,
It’s been a long, wet winter in northern California, badly needed to end the drought, but dark and dreary, never the less. Sugar Bowl Ski Area has received over 62 feet of snow thus far, while my parents’ home in Grass Valley has had over 100 inches of rain, far surpassing the previous record of 82 inches. Everyone is grateful for the bountiful rainfall saturating the earth and fueling an explosion of green wherever one looks, but five months into the deluge, most of the region’s inhabitants are understandably desperate for sunshine and the promise of spring.
...ral Native American tribes, including the Miwok, Yokut, Wintun, Maidu, and Monache were supplied with roots, seeds, nuts and berries, deer, rabbit, salmon and other fish from the region.” Indians were supplied by the Central Valley with food for them to survive. Native Americans in a way left us with the foundation on how to keep the food production from not declining in California. In the same article provided by CUESA it states that, “Today, the San Joaquin Valley grows cotton, grapes, olives, potatoes, stone fruit, Asian vegetables, nuts, citrus, and berries. Out of the Sacramento Valley come rice, beans, row crops, fruits, cattle, corn, and grapes. Innovations in irrigation, mechanization, labor structure, plant breeding, and inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers, as well as two major water projects (state and federal) have enabled this intensification.”
California is an agricultural state that greatly depends on water supply. According to the National Public Radio (2014) “half of the country’s fruits, nuts and vegetables come from California, a state that is drying up.” Now that is frightful considering California is facing a very vast water problem, the National Public Radio also stated that almost the whole state is pretty much considered “abnormally dry,” and some specific areas could face “extreme” to “exceptional” drought conditions, which could really damage the environment. California’s forests contain a lot of trees and plants that require a lot of water in order to survive which makes it very hard to ration the water between trees and humans when that water is very limited. The National Public Radio mentions how bad the drought is affecting the environment and
Due to the decreased rainfall in the past five years for the state of California, drastic measures have gone into effect to save every last drop of fresh water available to the population. According to 119 years of records, the average rainfall per year for the state has also been the worst ever recorded. With such a large decrease of rainfall, California has began community based projects to help save water by setting rules within households and schools for the amount of water that can be used daily. Water related uses also account for a sizeable amount of electricity, along with natural gas and fuels that are burnt each year. Besides the community based projects, California has began to turn towards major water sources and reservoirs with projects to decrease evaporation in those sources of water.
As the temperature rises, global warming causes droughts. In Lake Tahoe, California, the drought has caused Tahoe’s water level to drop. “ Chaol Blanchard predicted earlier this year that by fall of 2014 , Tahoe would drop below it’s natural rim.’’ , writes Scott Sonner from Associated Press. It actually did, in October 2014, the lake went down from 6,223ft to 6,222.9ft. With hot weather, there’s no snow to even out the water that flows out the Truckee river. If we don’t get snow we will eventually have to close the truckee river, either to save water of because the water won't reach the dam in Tahoe City. Another drastic drought happening now is the drought in Southern California. In the small town of East Porterville, the drought is so bad