Mother Nature can be unforgiving, but perhaps the most unforgiving act of Mother Nature is her ability to rid the land and weather forecast of the most precious resource of them all, water. When the stress of a drought is causing major problems the people of the area affected, the crops and livestock, and the water sources are all hit the hardest. This essay is going to explain to you the effects on those three things in the event of a severe drought. One resource that thoroughly explains the effects of a drought are websites and these couple of websites were very thorough in their explanation of the causes and effects of droughts. In the article “Killing the Colorado” by Amanda Zamora, Lauren Kirchner and Abrahm Lustgarten on Propublica.org …show more content…
The authors of this article do this through the use of ethos and pathos when describing what is happening and what could happen if this drought continues. Then also describing the things that are being done to take action against the drought. In Steven Wallander’s article on USDA.gov titled “California Drought: Farm and Food Imapact,” Wallander explains the effects on farms of California. The article explains the history of the drought and the severity of the drought. The article focuses on the impact that the water shortage has on the farms because of the reliance of irrigation these farms have. Wallander does all this through diagrams showing the amount of available water both on the surface and in the ground. This article is telling the reader how the drought in California is affecting the farms of California but not just the farms, the people who live there as well. Wallander does this through the use of ethos just like the previously mentioned article but Wallander uses more diagrams to present hard facts and make the reader realize that this is a big …show more content…
Matthews stated “Drought can be the most devastating act of mother nature. Not only does it affect my crops and animals, but it affects everyone else’s crops and animals as well, and that affects me again when I go to the grocery store.” This is a very true statement, a drought affects everyone it does not just target one farmer or one certain type of crop, drought affects everyone and everything. This means that when a drought hits it doesn’t discriminate, it wipes out everything. This devastation not only affects the farmer, but it affects the consumer too. Matthews also stated that some of the most healthy and full of life plants and animals can easily be impacted by a sudden drought or short term drought. What he means by this is that even though a farmer has his livestock in tip top shape and his crops are green and lush all it takes is a span of three or four weeks without rain to make these crops and livestock poor and pitiful. One other thing that was noted in this interview was what Matthews said about irrigation. “Irrigation can go dry just as easy as the sky can.” This should be very eye opening to everyone. What this means is that the water in the ground can dry up just the same as the water that comes out of the sky if there is no rain or the groundwater supply is exhausted. Overall this was a very
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.
The drought along with the dust storms as stated already made it impossible to plant crops, it also made it very difficult to provide food for the farmers and their families. If you could not plant anything, you did not have food for animals and you did not have food for families or children that needed it desperately. There was a sudden urgency of concern once farmers could not feed their family and members of those families started to starve.
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.
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.
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...
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).
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
...the El Nino air pressure. The drought also has many impacts on economic, social and environmental. Manage drought comes from daily life and the government measure.
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...
. Some cities, like San Francisco, had already been conserving water, which means it wasn’t much of a change for them. Other cities, like Beverly Hills, will be facing consequences if they don’t make the effort to save water. Water regulators are now able to fine people up to $500 if they take long showers, use a non-shutoff nozzle hose to wash their cars and sidewalk. After making changes like that, the state decided to focus on the smaller issues. For example, if you go to a restaurant, servers can’t bring you water unless you request. As you can see, many changes have been in made in the state of California to minimize the drought. There is a clear problem that California’s drought was caused at first by nature with “La Niña” but only
The weather in this novel controls their crops and the river flow; which controls their food and water supply. They depend on adequate rainfall to help their crops to grow and for the river to be full. They also depend on the sun to warm things up and make the crops grow. However, if there is too much rain or too much sun it can cause many problems, such as a drought or a flood. These things are significant in this novel, because t...
Onishi, N. & Wollan, M. (2014, January 17). Severe drought grows worse in california. The New York Times. Retrieved fromhttp://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/us/as-californias-drought-deepens-a-sense-of-dread-grows.html?_r=0
(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).