Tag: drought

Responding to criticisms that he allowed too much of January’s torrential rainfall to flow into the ocean, California governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on February 13 that will allow state authorities to hold more water in reservoirs for use by agricultural and urban water providers.

If you don’t understand the California water scene, you’re in a large company. Most of the state’s residents don’t either. Partly because it is almost impossibly complicated. Some explanation is in order.

Recent growth in the Peruvian avocado supply has been possible in part due to farmers from the high Andean mountains areas joining in. Unfortunately, these regions will be receiving less water due to a drought that puts in jeopardy the projections for the 2023 campaign.

The savage drought experienced in the western U.S. has long been foreseen, although until extremely recently it has been managed with a long-term strategy of wishing and hoping.

I remember the first three months of 1983. I was living in San Francisco. It rained every day. It didn’t rain all day every day—but it did rain every day. This is the flip side of California weather. It’s not just drought—it’s a regular alternation of drought and deluge, often lasting over decades.

The water crisis in northern Mexico has won a great deal of attention lately.

They’re right next to each other, and despite wild differences, they have one thing in common: water worries. They’re known as California and Arizona. Both are subject to what has been called the biggest drought in 1200 years.

A research team led by Renyuan Li of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, grew spinach plants out of water they extracted from the atmosphere.

The situation is “dire,” said Ian LeMay, president of the California Fresh Fruit Association, “and extremely disappointing.”  

Thirty-five years ago, this scenario would have struck observers of California agriculture as dystopian and nightmarish, much like the 2019 Los Angeles of Blade Runner. Unlike that LA, where it rains all the time, the problem is at the opposite end of the spectrum.