Assessment of The Writing by Bruce Newman About The Water Shortage in California

Introduction

California and a few other western states are currently being punished with a drought that may go down as one of the worst in the last 150 years. The current drought is forcing the entire population of California to go into a water conserving frenzy. The drought will have effect on all aspects of California’s ecosystem, this including the agricultural impact and also the wildlife facing the giant water shortages in lakes and rivers, and infrastructure of the economic income as a state. California is a state that is one of the largest agricultural exporters of multiple crops at a large global scale, the current drought has hit that area the hardest and might possibly leave a lasting affect on the California crops that can last upwards of 50 to 100 years. The drought will also affect the amount of jobs that will be offered to farmhands and how exactly that will affect the already bad economic situation within California.

Related research

This topic affects myself on a very important and close personal level. Growing up on an almond farm my entire life this hits close to home. Seeing the hardships my Family’s business is going through trying to stay positive throughout this horrible drought is painful enough. The precautions that the government and communities are taking to attempt to salvage as much water as they have are simply not enough to fuel a five billion dollar market that California produces in almonds per year. California is often forgotten about being an agricultural power, but the market for all of California yields in the agricultural market has been estimated to be at somewhere near 38 billion dollars for the entire state.

This article compares the weather that the state of California is currently facing as of late January, compared to the freezing conditions that the rest of the country is facing. The article written by Bruce Newman does a great job to illustrate the problems that California is facing with the current drought. Newman makes sure to cover all aspects of how the drought will affect all of California. Newman focuses on the Central Valley agricultural problems that will take place if the drought heightens to an even larger size of disaster. Even though the drought and lack of rain is hurting the agricultural the weather is very beneficial for the tourist industry within California, including Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and Disneyland.

This article is very descriptive on how the drought will affect both the agricultural in a bad way, but also how it is helping multiple other businesses in California. Newman makes sure to always return to the fact that California’s backbone is its agricultural industry that makes us a thriving state. Newman pulls from many occupations to offer different insight on how the drought is affecting how they are handling business at the moment; there is a plethora of mixed response, but the one thing even the business owner’s who are having fantastic business due to the drought can agree on is the drought is still an extremely harmful thing to our ecosystem.

The main focus of this article in relation to the current California drought is all related to the economic problems California and its population will face from the droughts. Nasser goes on to estimate that the market profit that famers could lose due to the drought could be upwards to one billion dollars. To fully fathom what kind of disaster this could mean to farmers is terrifying, to a low scale farm much like my grandparents this could be detrimental to their crop. With the crop not being able to be harvested this also will lead to farm employees not to be needed in such a large quantity, Nasser goes on to guess that possibly 15,000 employees will not be needed this harvest season due to there not being as much plentiful crop.

Nasser brings up only two key aspects of the farming industry. Yes the farmers and farm employees will be hurting from the drought, but also what about the companies that specialize in farming equipment and pesticides that are used on the crops. The farming industry in its entirety will and is being hit harder then it’s ever seen before. What this will do to the farming industry will be mind blowing; Nasser calculates that the affects from this drought will be felt for the next 100 years. To think that 3 months of little to no rain can have a lasting impact on our lives goes to show just how powerful Mother Nature remains.

In this journal the scientist created a program that would be able to replicate a series of drought simulations for the California Central Valley and how it would affect their water supply and affect the crops. The program they created would measure three different types of droughts, a severe drought, moderate drought, and a slight drought. The program measured everything from how much water would be taken out of the ground to the damages that the drought would have on the irrigation district with in central California. The most shocking thing was they ran an extra 30 years off after each different type of drought the program ran and for the sever and moderate drought the program stated that it would take an upwards of 100 to 150 years for the water loss to return back to its normal levels.

This journal which was wrote in 2009 puts in correlation to the different scales of droughts that this current one is on par with a severe drought. Throughout the journal the talk of what a severe drought could have on California is quite terrifying. The economic pressure that the drought would put on the state, its water levels, and the farmers of the crops is said to be detrimental to multiple stages of framing and our water supply. The biggest thing that the drought could cause is the increase of carbon. More carbon in the air due to the soil not being as moist and healthy would lead to worse air quality in our air which goes unnoticed currently by the public.

In this article Clarke illuminates the idea that with this current drought how will our food prices be affected. With California producing eight percent of the nation’s agricultural output the nation really has to start to wonder what exactly will happen to the food prices in the up and coming quarter. Clarke goes on record to state that without a doubt higher food prices are expected to become something in result of this drought in California. The higher food prices will affect almost every person in the nation, this could make or break a family’s financial situation if their grocery bill starts to steadily increase after food supplies start to run scarce. Not only will the food prices rise, but there is talk by local irrigation district that if the drought last throughout the summer that the price of water usage may also raise in result of the drought.

Clarke brings multiple key points up that will in somehow affect a good majority of the United States. Food prices will in one way or another affect every single person in America. California will be hit the hardest due to supermarkets that will now have to pay more money to import a crop into their store. The water usage will always remain a giant problem with this day in age due to us being so wasteful with our water supply. The abundance of pools this day of age can be an example of just how much water that can be used for a better reason is wasted. These ways need to be improved if we really want to have fresh water stick around.

The article is revolved around how this drought will affect in particular the California wildlife population of animals. Multiple animals living tendencies are investigated and how this drought will affect their instincts. The fish population in the lakes and rivers in California is in danger, due to lakes and rivers being vastly under their expected levels for this time of the year. With the rivers and streams running dry this can cause some unwanted wild life to venture closer to cities and towns where water is present. With this taking place dangerous and harmful animals such as mountain lions and bears might come in close contact with humans while the animals are searching for a new water source.

This topic might be the one where California residents aren’t looking at the most, but can be the one to prove most deadly to them. Bears and mountain lions are extremely dangerous living creatures when pushed to somewhere the animals are not familiar with could come into contact with. Said brings up a good point as well noting how the livestock industry will also suffer set backs due to the fact that there is not enough water to water the livestock’s food supply. It can already be seen that farmers are selling some of their livestock due to the fact they don’t have all the means to feed them.

Conclusion

The current drought California is going through just may be the worse one the state has seen since 150 years ago. A drought can leave its remains on a state and ecosystem for years after the drought has passed. Experts are assessing that the affects of this drought will be felt in the ecosystem for 500 years to come. A drought is no simple thing to get pass, multiple steps must be taken to minuscule the damage done by a drought. From the research gathered the farming industry in California will be hit the hardest by the drought. If California is able to take anything away from what this drought has done to its state, it is that the water management is very reckless with how water is being used. Something will need to be altered quickly if California is faced with another drought before this decade is over.