Agriculture already monopolizes 90 percent of global freshwater—yet production still needs to dramatically increase to feed and fuel this century’s growing population. For the first time, scientists have improved how a crop uses water by 25 percent without compromising yield by altering the expression of one gene that is found in all plants, as reported in Nature Communications.
When it rains, it pours — and that has San Francisco water officials looking into charging property owners a new “storm-water fee” to help with the upkeep of the city’s aging sewer system. The first target will be the owners of vacant lots. “It’s a tax on rain,” fumed Jason Sanders, who was just notified that effective July 1, he will be assessed $31.46 a month for runoff on his vacant lot on Ashbury Street.
Monday’s snow survey at Phillips Station tells a more positive story than it did before the recent storm, but totals are still well below average. Despite the recent late-winter storm that brought much-needed snow to the Sierra Nevada, the snow water equivalent (SWE) is 9.4 inches, which is 39 percent of normal for early March. “California has unquestionably experienced a dry winter this year, with a near-record dry February,” said DWR Director Karla Nemeth.
Welcome drifts of fresh snow awaited California’s water managers on their late-winter survey of the vital Sierra Nevada snowpack Monday after a massive winter storm slowed the state’s plunge back into drought. The storm piled up to 8 feet (2.4 meters) of new snow in the mountains from late last week through the weekend, forcing Department of Water Resources officials to postpone the measurement for a few days.
Drought conditions have returned to much of the Desert Southwest and southern Plains due, in part, to a dry winter that left the land parched in several states.Using data from the U.S. National Drought Monitor, NASA compiled a map that shows the areas of the country that have fallen back into some of the worst drought categories just nine months after 95 percent of the nation was drought-free. The map, using data acquired Feb. 27, shows extreme drought taking over parts of Texas and the Desert Southwest, with moderate or severe drought seen in the Southeast, northern Plains and parts of California.
More rain and snow is on the way. It’s expected to be dry today, Tuesday and through Wednesday night in the South County with the high hitting 70 degrees before cooling off again, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). But then Wednesday night another storm will move into the area bringing up to a quarter of an inch rain to Manteca through Friday. Yosemite Valley is expected to receive a half inch of rain.
After one year of torrential respite, drought may have returned to California, and with it, a renewal of the state’s perpetual conflict over water management. State and federal water systems have told farmers not to expect more than a fifth of their paper allocations, the state Water Resources Control Board is weighing a new regime of mandatory conservation, and supporters of more reservoirs are complaining about the glacial pace of spending $2.7 billion set aside in a water bond for more storage.
Heat waves, droughts and floods are climate trends that will force California farmers to change some practices — including what they grow — to continue producing yields that historically have fed people nationwide, a new study by the University of California says. Researchers reviewed 89 studies on California climate trends and impacts on the state’s diverse agriculture industry to predict how the industry must adjust through the end of the 21st century.
Scientists have found dramatically declining snowpack across the American West over the past six decades that will likely cause water shortages in the region that cannot be managed by building new reservoirs, according to a study published Friday. The study led by scientists from Oregon State University and the University of California, Los Angeles found drops in snow measurements at more than 90 percent of regional snow monitoring sites that have consistently tracked snow levels since 1955, said Philip Mote, director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University.
Despite this week’s rain and snow, California is back to dry conditions again after a very wet 2017. With about four weeks left in the normal wet season, the Sacramento Valley is at about 65% of average precipitation (less than 1/3 of last year’s precipitation). The southern Central Valley has less than 50% of average precipitation and southern California is still drier. Snowpack is much less, at 37% statewide. Surface reservoirs, which almost all refilled and spilled in record-wet 2017, are now at 98% of average for this time of year, and will fall quickly as there is well-below-normal snowpack to melt.
