The Dwindling Colorado River

[ysabetwordsmith]

The Colorado River is diminishing.  Now, finally, some people -- the water managers in the west -- are starting to realize that we're not looking at temporary droughts but at long-term changes in available water.  It's freaking them out.

I know that feel, bro.  I warned people about this problem when I was 12 and we visited out west.  The signs were obvious even then, but most people didn't want to believe it.  I'd mention the coming Water Wars and they thought I was nuts, except for one or two who asked me what to do about it.  I listed off conservation measures and said, "Realistically, though, move out while you can still sell your house for good money to people who don't know any better.  Because the stupid people are making the decisions, and they going to run out of water, and anyone still here when the music stops is screwed."  That's even more true now.  It's still possible to get great money for property in the west, but that won't hold once the water shortages really kick in.  The agriculture and other water-thirsty businesses will go, the jobs will go, people won't want to live where they can't get water reliably -- sooner or later, the property values will crash, and everyone still there will be unable to cash out.

I'm glad to see people starting to think of these as permanent changes, though.  We still have time to reduce the population by gradual, voluntary means.  If we run out of water, it will turn into a disaster evacuation, and those are much harder to handle.

Comments

[thewayne]

I've been telling people that Phoenix has been massively overbuilt for years, but gotta get people to move here and expand the tax base!

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Much of the West Coast, and all the major Cities of the Sun, have a similar problem. They're growing and they want to keep growing, because they aren't looking at the future. If they're lucky, the changes will come slowly enough that people will realize these are no longer good places to live and will leave on their own. But I think it's more likely for people to be driven away or dragged away in large numbers by major disasters.

[viciousladybug]

I saw a documentary on the Colorado River, I believe on Netflix some time ago and I honestly was completely unaware of the massive drain we have put on that river. It's so easy for the average person, like me, to take water for granted...esp in the Great Lakes state. :(

[apatheia_jane]

And the largest river system in Australia is currently in crisis - 1 million fish suddenly died earlier this year due to mismanagement.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-01-16/what-caused-menindee-fish-kill-drought-water-mismanagement/10716080

O_O

[ysabetwordsmith]

I hadn't heard about that one. Thanks for sharing.

Obviously, the root problem is taking out too much water. That's the part humans can control. We can't directly influence the weather patterns that bring droughts and temperature changes. If people constantly vote to take out more water, then they are voting for things like this to happen, because when you drain water from a system then it stops working properly. Duh.

[apatheia_jane]

Part of the management problem is that the murray darling basin crosses 4 states. I'm from the west coast, which at least has single state control. However, it has the problem that stream inflows have more than halved in the 70s, due to less rain and groundwater changes. And may have halved again but its possibly too early to tell. The govt owned water authority abandoned using a single long term average because every year was down on average, and shifted to a 10 year rolling average to compare each year to. Then, when every year was down on that figure too, shifted to a 5 year rolling average. Because even as we try to adjust to how bad its gotten, its still getting worse.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214581814000251

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Part of the management problem is that the murray darling basin crosses 4 states. I'm from the west coast, which at least has single state control. <<

Yes, watersheds often span many regions with different rules regarding them. We have that problem in America with things like the Colorado River. It's worse with the Nile, which crosses different countries. And without a unified control, forget managing a system effectively; you're just fucked.

>> However, it has the problem that stream inflows have more than halved in the 70s, due to less rain and groundwater changes. And may have halved again but its possibly too early to tell. The govt owned water authority abandoned using a single long term average because every year was down on average, and shifted to a 10 year rolling average to compare each year to. Then, when every year was down on that figure too, shifted to a 5 year rolling average. Because even as we try to adjust to how bad its gotten, its still getting worse. <<

Yeah, they don't want to admit that they're already living beyond their water budget, there are more people, and less water. Well, if they don't figure that out before the critical point, they'll wind up like Cape Town.

Here it's the cities of the Southwest and parts of the West Coast. More people are moving in, less water is flowing in, they're already way over what sustainable flow can support, and it's causing problems like San Francisco Bay getting too salty to support wildlife because not enough freshwater flows in anymore. But they won't admit it and say, "Hey, we can't support any more people here, some folks should move out." 0_o

Re: Thoughts

[apatheia_jane]

Less people is not the only answer. Individual people could comfortably survive on a lot less water than they're currently using, and there is significant resistance in Perth to tighter water restrictions and even water recycling, because idiots.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Less people is not the only answer. <<

For now, there are multiple options. But in the long run, less water means less people: no exceptions in human history. Water loss is a leading cause of civilization collapse.

>> Individual people could comfortably survive on a lot less water than they're currently using, and there is significant resistance in Perth to tighter water restrictions and even water recycling, because idiots. <<

Perhaps true. It will be interesting to see how wide is the gap between what people could do and what they will do -- if they're more attached to the place or to plentiful water.

In America, individual use can't solve the water problems because they aren't the cause. You could wipe out the entire household use and it wouldn't fix anything, because the problem is caused by agriculture. >_< YMMV.