In other years, black or Asian kids have gotten thirsty.

I took my first hard look at the cover for the draft Water Plan and I laughed and laughed and laughed. The images are standard, kid drinking, sprinklers on ag*, governance, nature, clouds. Whatever. Then! The ONE picture of the Delta is of a levee break (Franks Tract?). Yep. That’s the one thing you need [...]

I will never explain the unit “acre-foot” on this blog.

I’ve been slow to finish up my review of the Pacific Institute report, because that will mean that I have to get into the concepts of field and basin efficiency and I dread that.    I don’t mean to be a tease; I know how badly you’ve been craving more of this series.  I’ll put some [...]

More on the Pacific Institute report

The Pacific Institute report writes in the “Efficient Irrigation Technology” section that considerable water could be saved if growers used drip or sprinkler systems instead of flood or furrow. This is a reasonable sounding concept that falls apart when you get to specifics. To get the kind of savings the Pacific Institute estimates (0.6 million acrefeet), you’d have to [...]

I didn’t like the crop-shifting section.

The weakest section of the Pacific Institute report is the section on crop shifting. They wrote that shifting from low value field crops* that use more water to higher value row crops** that use less water could save 0.6 million acre-feet of water. I wish they hadn’t published that without much more data. Here’s why:
The [...]

I like to start by namecalling.

I must say, the Pacific Institute has balls of steel. They do what everyone else is scared to do: they predict how much water could be saved by changing how agriculture uses water. They give estimates, say that efficiency measures could save 3.4 million acrefeet. This is important. Now we know [...]

Lay of the land.

Couple months ago, the Pacific Institute put out a report, one in a series laying out a vision for California in 2030. Their overarching premise is that we have enough developed water sloshing around the state to get us through 2030, if we stop wasting it. They put out a volume on urban [...]