Drought in South West Worse Than Believed

The Financial Times reports that the drought in the American South West is worse than previously believed.

A huge volume of fresh water has disappeared from the drought-struck south west of the US in the past decade in what researchers say is a startling sign of the fragility of one of the country’s most important water supplies. 

Almost 65 cubic kilometres of water has been lost since late 2004 from the Colorado River Basin, an area roughly the size of France that is a vital but heavily used source of water for more than 30m people and 4m acres of farmland.

The amount of water lost is twice the volume of Lake Mead. Most of the loss (75%) is from the depletion of underground aquifers. 

The researchers found the rate of decline of groundwater, much of which is non-renewable and poorly managed, was roughly six times greater than the losses in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, another large reservoir further upstream on the Colorado River. 

“Groundwater is already being used to supplement the gap between surface water supply and basin water demands,” said study co-author, Jay Famiglietti, adding the study revealed a surprisingly high and prolonged reliance on groundwater to bridge the gap between demand and supply.

The root of the water problem is that the allocation of the volume of water from the Colorado River was determined in the 1930's during an unusually wet period, so the river has been over-allocated. California has historically taken more than its allocation to provide water to Los Angeles and Southern California. This was not a problem in the past when Nevada, Arizona and Colorado were not using their full allocations, but that has changed as Phoenix and  Las Vegas have boomed. The fact is that these are large cities in a dry region--the populations have exceeded the carrying capacity of the land.

For the prepper, the primary problems are two-fold. First, in the event of a disruption of the electrical system, the populations could lose water from the municipal water works, but may not have natural sources of water available. Thus, storing large quantities of water is more critical than in other parts of the nation. And the prepper may need to look at alternative sources of collecting water, such as some of the moisture farming methods I've cited in past posts. Second, the lack of water may make it difficult to engage in other preps, such as gardening, without taking special measures to conserve water. This may mean installing drip lines to water plants instead of sprinkling, covering the soil to prevent evaporation, etc.