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Drought...essay
California drought history
California drought history
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Drought
Over the past century, the United States has experienced many extreme droughts, all ranging in severity. A drought is defined as the deficiency of precipitation over a period of time which leads to a shortage of water, impacting the community, agriculture, economy, and much more. The intensity of a drought varies depending on the region and its average amount of rainfall. For example, if a region that typically receives rain every day were to go a month without it, they would struggle much more than a region that typically only gets rain four months out of the year. Because of this, there are multiple factors that weigh in on characterizing the drought and its intensity as well as its consequences, both short term and long term, on that specific region. There are several different droughts that have occurred in America that depict the severity of the drought itself and its effects on the region.
Drought is a difficult thing to measure, mainly because of all the different factors that are involved when determining the kind of drought, its intensity, and the length of the drought. Because drought can be defined in many different ways by many people, these are the three most frequently used: Meteorological, Agricultural, and Hydrological drought (What is Drought, n.d.). A Meteorological drought is typically defined by the degree of dryness and the span of the dry period. Agricultural drought focuses on the precipitation shortages, soil water deficits, and reduced ground water or reservoir levels needed for irrigation. The Hydrological drought occurs after periods of continuous lack of precipitation that reduces the water supply, impacting the community (What is Drought, n.d.). When determining whether the drought is short...
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...ecific to our state, California, was the drought from 1987 to 1992. This drought lasted a little over five years and was one of the most severe droughts California had ever experienced, especially the Central Coast. The counties to be mainly affected were Santa Barbara County, San Luis Obispo County, and San Benito County (Teijet, Weitkamp, Jensen, Garcia., 1993). One of the main consequences to hit these counties was environmental. Oak trees, specifically, were not able to recover from this drought, and many of them died from lack of water and nutrients. Because so many of these native oak trees were destroyed, even when the drought was over, the population would still have been tremendously decreased. The following years after this drought, the three counties were a part of a long-term study involving acorn production of different types of oak trees (Teijet,1993).
Water shortage in arid and semi-arid regions and declining its availability to a crisis ...
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.
Droughts in Wyoming’s future are unpredictable and uncertain; however, Richard Guldin of the Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station in Fort Collins, Colorado, has made some predictions for the water situati...
Some of the direct effects of the droughts were that many of the farmers’ crops were damaged by deficient rainfall, high temperatures, and high winds, as well as insect infestations and dust storms that accompanied these conditions. What essentially happened was that the soil lacked the stronger root system of grass as an anchor, so the winds easily picked up the loose topsoil and swirled it into dense dust clouds, called “black blizzards.” The constant dry weather caused crops to fail, leaving the plowed fields exposed to wind erosion. The effects of the drought happened so rapidly and progressively over time that there was very little preparation and planning the farmers could do before having to abandon their homes.
Hembreee, Brandon. "Southwest Could See Continuation of Drought." Southwest Farm Press 40.3 17 January 2013: 1-7. Web.
For example, then, drought is difficult to define in modern standards, it is typically classified as a shortage of water, usually associated with a deficit of rainfall. That is, drought occurs when the demand or use for water exceeds the current supply of water. It follows, then, the Colorado river drought does not solely affect one area, it’s grandeur has affected the whole southwestern United States. Additionally, the Colorado River Basin Water Management: Evaluating and Adjusting to Hydroclimatic provides information on the meager volume of rain fall. In theory, then, combined with increased temperatures from global warming, and a deficient of rainfall both circumstances have had a descending effect on most surrounding
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).
Vickers, A. (2002). Conserving our finite water supplies in an era of chronic drought: Practical steps. Electronic Green Journal Issue 17.
A drought means there is not enough precipitation. It is a period of unusually dry weather that keeps on long enough to cause environment or economic problems which result in a water shortage and destroy vegetation, animals and crops. Drought can happen even if there is some rainfall. Bushfires and heat waves will occur because of drought. (Francesca.F, 2000)
Extreme weather events, such as drought, are tremendously important when considering stressors to water resources. History of drought has been documented in Paleoclimate studies using long lived tree species indigenous to Texas. Tree-ring proxies are especially useful when reconstructing histories of climate change across a large region like Texas, since many can be sampled from different areas. Annual tree ring data can give a precise year-to-year temperature and precipitation records. Tree ring data has shown droughts lasting a decade or more staggered throughout the state happening randomly since the 1600’s. (why this is important to water supply) [Brenner]
Already scientists have observed that more than 75% of the recent economic losses are caused by natural hazards which can be attributed to wind storms, floods, droughts and other climate related hazards. In the year 2008, the U.S. state of Iowa was on the front pages of newspapers all around the world. Weeks of heavy rain in the Midwest caused rivers to swell and levees to break. Millions of acres of farmland are now underwater, their plantings most likely destroyed. By March, Iowa had tied its third-highest monthly snowfall in 121 years of record keeping, and then came the rain. April’s st...
“For most of the history of our species we were helpless to understand how nature works. We took every storm, drought, illness and comet personally. We created myths and spirits in an attempt to explain the patterns of nature (Druyan).” According to Fox, Drought came also be seen as a slow- motion train wreck. We still have a very short time to get the people off safely before the crash. This drought is causing long dry period in regions were rain fall is usually frequent enough. From there this drought is turning to more like a famine because the area in drought is so huge and is causing much conflict for the survival of the people (2011). These areas include Somalia, southern Ethiopia, and northern Kenya.
As droughts persist in any given area, fresh-water supply is severely constricted to local inhabitants as the lack of precipitation occurs. With fresh-water being limited, it is strategically rationed amongst the inhabitants experiencing the drought, creating sizable inconveniences. Moreover, with the lack of water, the state in which the drought occurs must import more than it exports, to suffice for the shortage, thus causing a low-scale trade deficit, permitting the increase of taxes. An example of a long-term drought, thereby creating water shortage, is California. According to a chart provided by David Talbot, a writer for the MIT Technology Review, California's drought intensity increased from abnormally dry in 2011 to an exceptional
(2009). The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'. Drought - a fact sheet. Retrieved from: http://www.ifad.org/lrkm/factsheet/cc.pdf The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, (2007).
Droughts are becoming longer and more intense internationally since the 1970’s (**). If there is no change, studies show that droughts are going to keep getting longer and more severe. Droughts are dangerous because they mean less water for things like watering crops, drinking, and production electricity by hydroelectric dams. The Southwest United States is currently at risk for droughts because water supplies are draining in states like Arizona, where water is insufficient enough as it is.