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Did California Stop Mandatory Water Conservation Efforts Too Soon?

A little more than a year ago, California’s Gov. Jerry Brown ordered mandatory water reductions of 25 percent throughout the state. And in some areas, citizens were ordered to reduce consumption by 35 percent. This was all in response to more than four years of severe drought.

However, in June 2016, those mandatory reductions were lifted, mainly because the state was blessed with considerable rainfall the previous winter. As a result, local water agencies were given the authority to determine on their own whether mandatory water reductions were still necessary and, if so, what the amounts should be.

BLOG: Conservation Goals Can Keep California Afloat

Several weeks ago, my daughters “graduated” from the third grade. The final day of the school year was an unusually warm June day, and after pizza and games, their teacher said goodbye for the summer after extracting a solemn promise – to read “at least 10 books” during their time away.

Ten chapter books in 10 weeks, I reminded them on our drive home – a healthy dose, remembering the pile at my bedside. Easy, they promised, no problem.

 

Where are the World’s Most Water-Stressed Cities?

In the southern reaches of Egypt, the city of Aswan is one of the hottest and sunniest in the world. Temperatures reach 41C in the summer and less than a millimetre of rain falls each year. Some years it doesn’t rain at all.

Aswan may be one of the world’s least rainy places, but it’s not even close to being the most water-stressed city. It nestles on the east bank of the Nile, close to the Aswan High Dam and the vast Lake Nasser, one of the largest manmade lakes in the world. With a capacity of 132 cubic km, the dam serves the irrigations needs not just of Aswan, but Egypt and neighbouring Sudan as well.

Warm Water Blob Survives as El Niño Dies

It’s being called a marine heat wave. The combination of the strongest El Niño in recent history and the warm water anomaly known as the Blob generated the greatest amount of warm ocean water that has ever been recorded, possibly affecting marine life up and down the West Coast. New research has now linked the two phenomena, with each believed to be alternately affecting the other through the atmosphere and the ocean. El Niño is the warming of the equatorial Pacific Ocean and it can affect wind, temperature and precipitation patterns around the globe.