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Good Job Gavin make sure to be aware.

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California Governor eases drought restrictions Governor Gavin Newsom has rolled back some drought emergency provisions that are no longer needed due to current water conditions, while maintaining other measures that support regions and communities still facing water supply challenges, and that conti…

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Greece has been stricken by hundreds of wildfires this summer, with dozens of fires breaking out each day. The vast majority are extinguished quickly but some have blazed out of control.

One fire, in the Alexandroupolis and Evros region in the north-east, has destroyed homes and vast tracts of forest since it started on 19 August.

Another fire on the island of Rhodes burned for days in July, forcing holidaymakers and local people to flee homes and hotels.

The fire in the north-east was blamed for 20 of last week's 21 wildfire-related deaths in Greece. Of those, 18 are believed to have been migrants whose bodies were found together in an area the fire had passed through.

Footage of the fire itself and the areas it has burned point to the scale of destruction.

As of Thursday, 582 firefighters had been deployed to the region, backed by 10 planes and seven helicopters from nine European countries.

Firefighters attempt to extinguish a fire in a
village in north-east Greece on Thursday. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

A firefighter runs as a wildfire intensifies near the village of Sidiro and Yannuli. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

The blaze, burning deep in the forest in the Dadia national park, is the largest single wildfire recorded in the EU since the European Forest Fire Information System started keeping records in 2000.

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An area ravaged by wildfire stands next to a hotel on the coastline of Rhodes in late July. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

The Rhodes fire in July prompted what authorities described as the largest evacuation undertaken by the country, with about 20,000 people rescued.

The human-caused climate crisis has increased the wildfire season by about two weeks on average across the globe and is responsible for a higher likelihood of fire and bigger burnt areas in southern Europe.

This year's figures for the amount of land burned by wildfires in Greece and Europe are tracking ahead of the 2006-22 average.

Cumulative CO ₂ emissions from the Greek wildfires are also well up on the 2003-22 average.

The Greek fires are just one element of a series of record-shattering heatwaves, wildfires and floods that have destroyed lives in the US, Europe, India and China in 2023. Earlier this week, scientists warned the Guardian that the current level of extreme weather impacts boded ill for the future as emissions continue to be pumped into the atmosphere.

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A visual guide to Greece's deadly wildfires

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Greece has been stricken by hundreds of wildfires this summer, including a blaze in the north-east that started on 19 August

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This summer's extreme weather is a sign of things to come

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This summer's extreme weather is a sign of things to come

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Two-thirds of the way through the year, 2023 seems destined to be remembered as the year that extreme weather events left the Northern Hemisphere reeling.

The summer months brought a litany of extreme weather events: Wildfires across Canada. Flooding in Vermont. An "unusually early and aggressive start" to the Atlantic hurricane season. A devastating wildfire on the Hawaiian island of Maui, fueled by heat and cyclonic winds, that all but destroyed a historic town..

According to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, the three-month period from June to August was the warmest northern hemisphere summer ever recorded, 1.2° F above the 1991-2020 average and 0.5 degrees higher than the previous record.

And a new analysis by the nonprofit organization Climate Central has drawn a direct line between those temperatures and climate change, arguing that nearly half of the global population-3.9 billion people- experienced 30 or more days between June and August with temperatures made at least three times more likely by climate change.

"Virtually no one on Earth escaped the influence of global warming during the past three months," Andrew Pershing, Climate Central's vice president for science, said in a press release. "In every country we could analyze, including the southern hemisphere where this is the coolest time of year, we saw temperatures that would be difficult-and in some cases nearly impossible-without human-caused climate change. Carbon pollution is clearly responsible for this season's record-setting heat."

The climate connection

Connecting the dots between climate change and this summer's extreme weather is complicated, but some scientists are feeling increasingly confident in their ability to do so.

Speaking at a press briefing to announce the Climate Central findings, Friederike Otto, a physicist at Imperial College London said that the intensity of wildfires in Quebec that blanketed large areas of the U.S. in smoke "was about 50 percent more intense because of human-induced climate change," and that the weather conditions that allowed the fires to flourish were "made at least twice as likely" by a warming climate.

But Otto, a co-founder of the World Weather Attribution initiative, acknowledged that, because of the multiple components involved in driving extreme weather events, "quantification is quite different depending on different methods and different models."

For that reason, some scientists prefer to speak in more general terms about how climate change has driven the year's extreme weather.

"We can say, with a great deal of confidence, that we would not be seeing the unprecedented weather extremes we saw play out this past summer in the absence of human-caused warming from fossil fuel-generated carbon pollution," says Michael Mann, director of the Penn Center of Science, Sustainability and the Media, in an email.

But he argues that analysis that attempts to attribute specific events to climate change can sometimes miss the bigger picture of how warming affects broader, longer-term weather patterns, such as by distorting the jet stream, the band of westerly winds that circles the northern hemisphere. A number of researchers are concerned that a warming Arctic is weakening the jet stream, allowing hot air from the tropics to flow north and prolonging heatwaves, fueling wildfires, and melting the Arctic.

For that reason, explained Mann, whose latest book on climate change is publishing later this month, "I often prefer to talk about how climate change is impacting the basic processes relevant to all of these events, which includes not only the obvious fact that heat waves are more frequent and intense on a hotter planet, but the fact that hotter continents in the summer lose more moisture through evaporation."

What might seem like just a heat wave can set off a cascade of disasters, Mann notes. Worse droughts lead to more damaging wildfires. And a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor, so when rain does arrive it is often heavier and more likely to lead to flooding.

Adds Stephen MacAvoy of the Department of Environmental Science at American University, the key to understanding the future of weather is to assume an increase in the "extreme and erratic."

"Your current conditions won't necessarily be exacerbated," he explains. "If it's dry, it doesn't necessarily get drier. And if it's wet, it won't necessarily get wetter. But there's a good chance it's going to be odd, frankly. I mean, Texas didn't expect to get frozen in 2021."

Redefining summer weather

Where climate researchers are in accord, however, is that this past summer will not prove anomalous. We may not experience similarly widespread extreme conditions next year or the year after, but we will experience them again and again.

"In terms of extreme weather:-well, we have to get used to that," says MacAvoy. But he takes umbrage at the notion that 2023 presages a "new normal."

"I have issues with that phrasing," he explains. "Because normal implies stable, and we're not in a new normal, because everything is still changing, and it's going to continue to change."

Mann agrees.

"I've sometimes favored the term 'a new abnormal,' but the basic problem with this framing is that it makes it sounds like we've arrived in some new state of the climate and just have to figure out how to adapt to it," he explains. "But it's much worse than that. As we continue to warm the planet, all of this gets worse and worse."

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This summer's extreme weather is a sign of things to come

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Earth just experienced its hottest summer on record. Scientists say it wasn't an anomaly-just the beginning of the disasters we'll see as climate change worsens.

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Arizona limits construction to save water

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Arizona limits construction to save water

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PHOENIX (AP) - Arizona will not approve new housing construction on the fast-growing edges of metro Phoenix that rely on groundwater thanks to years of overuse and a multi-decade drought that is sapping its water supply.

In a news conference Thursday, Gov. Katie Hobbs announced the restrictions that could affect some of the fastest-growing suburbs of the nation's fifth-largest city.

Officials said developers could still build in the affected areas but would need to find alternative water sources to do so - such as surface or recycled water.

Driving the state's decision was a projection that showed that over the next 100 years, demand in metro Phoenix for almost 4.9 million acre-feet of groundwater would be unmet without further action, Hobbs said. An acre-foot of water is roughly enough for two to three U.S. households per year.

Despite the move, the governor said the state isn't running out of water. "Nobody who has water is going to lose their water," Hobbs said.

Officials said the move would not affect existing homeowners who already have assured water supplies.

Hobbs added that there are 80,000 unbuilt homes that will be able to move forward because they already have assured water supply certificates within the Phoenix Active Management Area, a designation used for regulating groundwater.

Years of drought in the West worsened by climate change have ratcheted up pressure among Western states to use less water. Much of the focus has stayed on the dwindling Colorado River, a main water source for Arizona and six other Western states. Over the past two years, Arizona's supply from the 1,450-mile powerhouse of the West has been cut twice.

Phoenix relies on imported Colorado River water and also uses water from the in-state Salt and Verde rivers. A small amount of the city's water supply comes from groundwater and recycled wastewater.

The drought has made groundwater - held in underground aquifers that can take many years to be replenished - even more vital.

Under a 1980 state law aimed at protecting the state's aquifers, Phoenix, Tucson and other Arizona cities have restrictions on how much groundwater they can pump. But in rural areas, there are few limitations on its use.

Long pumped by farmers and rural residents in Arizona with little oversight, Hobbs and other state officials recently vowed to take more steps to protect the state's groundwater supplies.

In rapidly growing Phoenix suburbs such as Queen Creek and Buckeye, developers have relied on unallocated groundwater to show that they had adequate water supplies for the next 100 years, which Arizona requires for building permits in some areas.

"Developers rely on groundwater because it has been frankly, cheaper and easier for them, and they have been able to move through the process much more quickly," said Nicole Klobas, chief counsel for the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

Under the new restrictions, that won't be possible.

"It closes off that path," said Kathryn Sorenson, director of research at the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University.

Because the rule largely affects cities and towns outside Phoenix and larger cities in the metro area, Sorenson said developers would likely "weigh whether they want to continue to buy relatively cheap land ... and incur the cost of developing a whole new water supply versus purchase land that is probably more expensive without the boundaries of a designated city."

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Naishadham reported from Washington, D.C.

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Drought, water overuse prompt Arizona to limit construction in some fast-growing parts of Phoenix

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Arizona will not approve new housing construction on the fast-growing edges of metro Phoenix that rely on groundwater thanks to years of overuse and a multi-decade drought worsened by climate change. In a news conference Thursday, Gov. Katie Hobbs announced the pause on new construction that would affect some of the fastest-growing suburbs of the nation's fifth-largest city.

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Ask a water expert if California's drought is finally done, and the answers sound something like this:

"Yes and no." "Kind of." "Depends what you mean by drought."

The state has been deluged by storms this winter, hit by 12 atmospheric rivers that have led to evacuation orders, rising rivers and broken levees. In some parts of the Sierra Nevada, more than 55 feet of snow have fallen.

With reservoirs filling up, many Californians are eager to put the severe, 3-year drought behind them. A major water supplier in Southern California recently lifted mandatory conservation rules that limited outdoor watering. Large parts of the state are now free of drought, according to the federal government's Drought Monitor, which looks at rainfall and soil moisture.

But in California, water shortages aren't just due to a lack of rain, and the state's chronic water problems are far from over.

"While we've seen some pretty fantastic wet weather and we've seen conditions improve, in a whole lot of places we still have some lingering impacts that still challenge California," says Mike Anderson, the state's climatologist.

Decades of drought have taken their toll, and experts say that deeper issues need to be addressed before California can be fully-drought free. Here are three reasons why:

#1 - California's groundwater drought is still bad

When California's reservoirs declined, many cities and farmers turned to another water source: vast aquifers underground.

In drought years, groundwater has supplied up to 60% of California's water. But the pumping has been largely unregulated. So over the decades, water levels have fallen dramatically in California's aquifers. Before this winter, some groundwater wells were at the lowest points ever recorded. That's because in the Central Valley, groundwater hasn't been replenished after previous droughts.

"Groundwater is the dark matter of the hydrologic cycle," says Graham Fogg, professor emeritus of hydrogeology at the University of California Davis. "The fact that these are such huge volumes of water allows them to take a lot of abuse and to be depleted year after year."

As a result, more than 2,000 household wells went dry over the last three years in California, many in low-income communities of color. Temporary water supplies, including bottled water, had to be brought in.

"We're not out of a drought," says Susana De Anda, executive director of the Community Water Center, an environmental justice organization in the Central Valley. "In California, the human right to water was passed in 2012. Unfortunately to this day, many Californians don't have that reality, and it's important to recognize that."

This winter, a new effort is underway to use some of the floodwaters to fill aquifers. California is also in the process of implementing a new groundwater law, intended to get over-pumping under control. Water users are currently writing plans for keeping groundwater use in balance with supply, but they won't be fully implemented until 2040.

"Over the years, pretty consistently, California has been using a lot more water than its surface water and groundwater system can supply," Fogg says. "So that has to change."

#2 - California's other water source is still in drought

Most of California's major cities exist today because their water is delivered from hundreds of miles away. In Southern California, that distance is thousands of miles, because the region uses water from the Colorado River.

A two-decades long drought has hit the Colorado River hard, causing its massive reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, to plummet. Climate change is shrinking the snowpack that feeds the river, and the seven states that use it have long made claim to more water than is available on average.

Those states are now in emergency negotiations over cutbacks to their water supply, but are struggling to agree. With some of the oldest water rights on the river, California has seniority and is technically last in line for cuts. But its water supply will still be impacted. Many Southern California cities have been working on conserving and recycling water locally, so they're less dependent on faraway supplies.

"We just have to get better at managing the more limited resources that we have there, and that means figuring out how to share a smaller pool of water than what we've been using up till now," says Ellen Hanak, director of the Water Policy Center at the Public Policy Institute of California.

#3 - The next drought is coming...

Cue the John Steinbeck quote - it's easy to forget about the dry times once the rains come. But drought will return.

"We always have to be ready," Hanak says. "Drier times could come again as soon as next year."

As the climate gets hotter, California's extremes are expected to get more extreme. That means droughts will be drier, putting even greater strain on the state's water supply.

After the last major drought ended in California in 2017, some water conservation behavior seemed to stick. Water use didn't rebound to pre-drought levels, because some residents made lasting changes, like replacing water-hungry lawns and swapping for more efficient fixtures and appliances.

Still, experts warn that keeping a drought-mindset can only help California weather future challenges. So there's a risk in acting like drought is a thing of the past. Saving water now could help keep reservoirs fuller, a safe bet in a state where next year's winter storms are never guaranteed.

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3 reasons why California's drought isn't really over, despite all the rain

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California has been deluged by storms this winter, but fixing the state's severe drought will take more than rain. The state had deeper problems in how it uses water.

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Period poverty and Ecology are two important issues. Here's a solution for both.

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VIDEO: How banana plant waste is turned into menstrual pads

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A startup in India is turning waste from banana farms into biodegradable sanitary pads that could prevent tons of trash created by plastic pads.

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1. With typically arid springs and summers, droughts are normal in California... but not at this intensity.
Climate change is intensifying drought across the state, which puts the state in a precarious position that compromises water supplies for drinking and agriculture, increases wildfire risk, and threatens fish and wildlife. A recent study concluded California is in the middle of the worst mega-drought in 1200 years.

We can adapt to future droughts through reducing our water use and switching to more sustainable water uses. We can expand our existing usage of recycled water, replenish our groundwater aquifers and increase our flexibility in crop and municipal uses.

2. California's small, rural communities of color are most vulnerable to drought.
According to the Public Policy Institute of California, at least 2,600 well-dependent households experienced water shortages, and roughly 150 small water systems needed emergency assistance during the 2012‒16 drought. As water levels continue to decline throughout California - thanks to the combination of heat, drought, and over-pumping groundwater aquifers- this remains a significant problem for at-risk communities. For more resources on clean drinking water, drought, and community impacts check out the Community Water Center and CleanWaterActions.org.

While addressing the immediate and dire needs for clean water delivery to these households and communities, we can address some of the longer-term needs by funding linkages between small rural communities and nearby larger water municipal supplies; and we can increase our groundwater storage by allowing high flows to spread and recharge local groundwater.

3. Droughts harm wildlife that live in California's rivers, streams, and wetlands.
With more than 240 freshwater species in California endangered or vulnerable to extinction, and rivers, wetlands, and forests threatened by the combination of environmental degradation and land development, it is more important than ever that these species have stable environments in which to thrive and reproduce. Decreased flows and rising water temperatures threaten fish and wildlife and have severe implications for regional biodiversity.

We must prevent the near-term collapse of our salmon fisheries by getting the fish to cold water reserves - salmon need cold water streams, where they can successfully reproduce. These cold water streams are endangered by releases from reservoirs that may be too little to sustain salmon, too warm to allow the fish to reproduce or both; and decreases in shaded aquatic habitat that occurs when shade-creating trees are removed from the banks of rivers and streams. We need out-of-the-box strategies to protect cold-water fish species: first, we need a long-term strategy to include environmental water rights in the necessary equation for distributing river water in California. Next, we must collect better information on key flows needed to support fish species[KC9] , and use this information to make our water distribution system fairer and more equitable to the environment and other users. Finally, we must create and restore access to cold-water streams that salmon rely on for key habitat, such as the Feather, Yuba, and Sacramento River tributaries.

4. California's intensifying wildfires exacerbate the effects of drought.
We know that drought intensifies wildfires; however, we don't yet understand how wildfires make droughts worse. We rely on meadows and forests in the Sierra Nevada's headwaters to provide clean, fresh water downstream. However, when catastrophic wildfire removes the trees and plants and scars the soils, our headwaters are directly exposed to the erosive forces of storms and are unable to absorb rain and snowmelt. As a result, our headwaters experience rapid runoff often carrying tons of sediment into our streams, lakes, and rivers. This means we have more water early in the season and less water during the dry summer months when communities and wildlife need it. Moreover, post-fire runoff often carries pollutants and excessive levels of nutrients causing algae blooms that can be toxic, and accelerating sedimentation - and shortening the lives - of reservoirs and hydroelectric infrastructure. Proper strategic forest management and the use of prescribed fire and cultural burning practices can mitigate these risks and help address poor water quality and sediment loading into streams after wildfires. Studies suggest the costs of prevention are 1/3 the costs of fire recovery.

We must learn to work with fire through ecologically reducing fuel loads. Often, this entails thinning out small trees and brush so that fire is less likely to climb into the high canopy and accelerate its spread across the landscape. Another key strategy is to run low-lying ground fires during the wetter 'shoulder' seasons. These prescribed burns stay within carefully guarded boundaries and help to further reduce the fuel load and replenish the soil with nutrients from the ash. Protecting river corridors with smart, locally, and ecologically directed fuel management will keep these areas wetter than the surrounding landscape, and rich in vegetation that can capture sediment from above and provide cover for fish and wildlife.

Multi-benefit restoration approaches can make a serious impact.
California's multi-year drought is a problem that necessitates nature-based solutions. Multi-benefit restoration can create a more reliable water storage and cleaner water supply, enhance regional biodiversity, manage flood risk (which is paradoxically also exacerbated by drought), and much more. American Rivers is leading the way on multi-benefit projects such as floodplain reconnection in the Central Valley and meadow restorations in the Sierra Nevada headwaters that have far-reaching benefits for water storage and water quality.

River health is a core facet of California's drought. Connect with your nearby river and see how you can get involved!

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Five Things You Should Know About California's Drought -

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Climate change is intensifying drought across California, which puts the state in a precarious position that compromises water supplies for drinking and agriculture, increases wildfire risk, and threatens fish and wildlife

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SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb 3 (Reuters) - A California startup using rocks to soak up carbon dioxide from the air has teamed up with a Canadian company to mineralize the gas in concrete, a technological tie-up that is a first and they say could provide a model for fighting climate change globally.

U.N. scientists concluded that removing billions of tons of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere, in addition to cutting current emissions, will be necessary to limit climate change. To do that, two things are needed: first, capturing carbon dioxide with nature or technology, and second, locking it up for centuries.

Companies are springing up to do both.

Heirloom Carbon Technologies delivered about 30 kg (66 lb) of CO2 collected from the air around its San Francisco Bay Area headquarters to neighboring Central Concrete, a Vulcan Materials' (VMC.N) subsidiary that on Wednesday incorporated the gas into new concrete. That's equivalent to tailpipe emissions of driving about 75 miles (120 km) in a car.

The joint effort between Heirloom and Canada's CarbonCure Technologies was the first time that carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere using such Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology had been secured in concrete, where the CO2 will stay put for centuries, several scientists said.

"Today this is a thimbleful of emissions abatement. You know, that's how it starts," said Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at Carbon Direct, which works with companies to manage their carbon footprint. Because concrete is so widely used, it has great potential for absorbing CO2, if the process works and goes global. "The thing about direct air capture and concrete is it's a big prize together," he said.

Heirloom heats crushed limestone to release naturally absorbed CO2, then puts the CO2-starved rock on columns of huge trays, where they act like sponges, soaking up close to half their weight in the gas over three days. The rock is then heated to release the collected ambient carbon dioxide, and the cycle repeats.

"Limestone has this natural ability to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. The problem is it's just slow. So what we do here is just give it more superpowers to make it pull carbon much, much, much faster than it otherwise would," said Heirloom CEO Shashank Samala.

CarbonCure, the concrete technology company, mixes CO2 with concrete ingredients, turning it into a mineral that strengthens the concrete, cutting the need for cement - the part of concrete with the biggest carbon footprint.

This week, CarbonCure incorporated the gas into water used to clean out trucks. The CO2 reacted with leftover ingredients and then was put into a new batch of concrete.

Capturing and locking down carbon on a global scale will not be easy though: companies like Heirloom will have to build expensive, massive plants capable of capturing millions or billions of tons a year.

"To remove a billion tons from the air we need in the order of mid-hundreds of billions of dollars," said Samala, who expects funders of solar, buildings, transmission towers and other infrastructure to finance carbon infrastructure, too.

The price of carbon also needs to fall. The U.S. government and industry broadly see $100-a-tonne carbon dioxide as a reasonable price for broad deployment. Heirloom charges around $1,000 now; Samala expects to be at $100 by the time his projects are soaking up millions of tons a year.

Concrete itself is controversial: it is the most used building material in the world, and it accounts for about 8% of global emissions of carbon dioxide, including those of its main binding agent, cement. CarbonCure's most-used technology cuts that by about 5%, said CarbonCure CEO Rob Niven. The new one using wastewater could cut a further 5%-10%.

That leaves it a huge net emitter with a difficult path to zero emissions, without raising prices.

However, concrete's ubiquity is attractive, because there are few places to securely hold carbon dioxide at present. "It is a really thoughtful way to get around the current bottleneck of storage for DAC," said Anu Khan, deputy director of science at climate advocacy group Carbon180.

"The thing about concrete is there are no substitutes," Niven said. Technology can find new binding agents and new ingredients. "We just have to clean it up," he said.

Reporting by Peter Henderson and Nathan Frandino; Editing by Lisa Shumaker

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Concrete traps CO2 soaked from air in climate-friendly test

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A California startup using rocks to soak up carbon dioxide from the air has teamed up with a Canadian company to mineralize the gas in concrete, a technological tie-up that is a first and they say could provide a model for fighting climate change globally.

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Ocean acidification is a major problem that is killing our coral reefs. See here how you can help reduce it!

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Ocean Acidification What it is, Where it came from, and how to fix it

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San Luis Reservoir Nearly Full Thanks to Wet Winter

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Less than six months ago, San Luis Reservoir near Gilroy was less than a quarter full. Now, it’s nearly topping its banks.

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What Is Ecology? – The Ecological Society of America

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Ecology is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment; it seeks to understand the vital connections between plants and animals and the world around them. Ecology also provides information about the benefits of ecosystems and how we can use Earth’s resources in ways that leave the environment healthy for future generations.

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The Story

The unrelenting drought that has plagued the Colorado River Basin for more than a decade is redefining the water resources millions of people depend on, perhaps even ushering in a new reality for water in the west. The water inflow into the Colorado River has been below average for 13 out of the past 16 years, with average water inflow since 2000 just 79 percent of the previous 30-year average. The period 2000-2015 had the lowest water availability of any 16-year period in the last 60 years.

Projections indicate an imbalance in our water supply, and we must rely on human innovation to find solutions that ensure enough water for generations to come.

As a result, since 2000 Lake Mead water surface elevation has dropped over 143 feet, going from full to only 38 percent of the total storage capacity. The lower lake level impacts everything from launching boats to lake ecosystems. The net water loss is nearly six trillion gallons of water. The combined reservoirs of the Colorado River overall have gone from being nearly full to containing only approximately 50 percent of overall storage capacity.

Lake Mead water surface elevation has dropped over 143 feet.

While the Colorado River has been affected by previous droughts, a warming climate is predicted to alter the water cycle in new ways. Long range climate predictions are for warmer winter temperatures in the Southwest, less snowpack in the Rocky Mountains, and less melted snow able to find its way into the Colorado River.

Projections for the future indicate that an imbalance in the system will persist: there will not be enough water naturally coming into the system to replenish what we are removing. This has prompted water managers from the seven Colorado River Basin states as well as Department of the Interior to develop a comprehensive study looking in detail at water supply and demand over the next 50 years. That study found that by 2060 the use demand on the Colorado River will be greater than the projected supply by 3.2 million acre feet (that's enough water for approximately 16 million people for one year).

Graph from U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Colorado River Basin and Demand Study showing trends in water supply and demand.

The Colorado River Basin Supply and Demand Study not only projects future demands and water supplies, but evaluates a wide array of water use practices, and brings water managers and users together to develop proposed solutions to ensure there is enough water for generations to come.

Solving the challenges of water sustainability presents a question: How do we increase the water supply and manage the demand for water resources in the driest part of the country? Building upon the Basin Study, scientists, analysts, managers, historians, engineers, and the public have explored ways that, if combined, could yield over 4,000,000 acre-feet of water by 2035 (that is more than a trillion gallons).

Did you know?

An acre-foot can be explained by imagining covering a football field, which is about an acre, with one (1) foot of water.

However, these methods can be expensive and time-consuming, and they are not always environmentally friendly. Balancing the need for water with the cost of providing enough water is a problem that will not quickly go away. But along the way, amazing feats in scientific engineering and innovation will emerge and the human ability to cooperate, compromise and solve problems can persevere.

Education Corner

Every Drop: Lake Mead's Water Budget

The persistent drought plaguing the Southwest shows no signs of slowing. Water managers, farmers, engineers and residents are re-envisioning the way water is used, re-used, stored and moved. One useful tool that managers use to understand their water use is a water budget. Think of a water budget in much the same way your own budget is used to manage money - there are water deposits, withdrawals, and even savings. For Lake Mead, low water levels mean the water deposits do not always equal water withdrawals, and as savings shrink, managers are working hard to balance the budget.

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Drought - Lake Mead National Recreation Area (U.S. National Park Service)

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The unrelenting drought that has plagued the Colorado River Basin for more than a decade is redefining the water resources millions of people depend on, perhaps even ushering in a new reality for water in the west.

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The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is the state's lead agency for environmental management and stewardship - protecting our air, water and land. The vision of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection is to create strong community partnerships, safeguard Florida's natural resources and enhance its ecosystems.

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The Florida Legislature through the Energy, Climate Change and Economic Security Act of 2008 established a statewide weight-based recycling goal of 75% by 2020.The act directed the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to establish a reporting protocol and directed counties to report annually.

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Here in the UK, 70% of our water supply comes from surface water, which means that the water we use in our daily lives takes directly from freshwater sources in nature. WWF is working with dishwashing brand Finish to replenish 500 million litres of freshwater in the UK, raise awareness of the importance of freshwater for nature to thrive and encourage people to take small everyday actions to reduce their water use.

Governments and water companies can make the biggest difference to the way that our freshwater is used, but reducing your household water footprint is a great way to make an impact as an individual. Take a look at our top ten tips to save water and start making a difference.

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UK nature depends on freshwater for survival. Our lakes, rivers and wetlands provide homes for thousands of species. Just like us, they need water.

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California, along with much of the rest of the western United States, is once again mired in drought. In fact, California has experienced significant drought conditions in 13 of the 22 years (60%) since the turn of the century.

A 2020 study in the journal Science concluded that 2000 through 2018 was the second-driest 19-year period in the U.S. Southwest in at least the past 1,200 years, and a 2014 paper in Geophysical Research Letters found that 2012 through 2014 was the driest three-year period in California over that same timeframe.

Nearly the entire state is currently in the 'severe' drought category or worse, and three-quarters is experiencing 'extreme' to 'exceptional' drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

The consequences of drought in California are felt well outside the state's borders. California is effectively America's garden - it produces two-thirds of all fruits and nuts grown in the U.S. The state's agricultural industry generates $50 billion each year, which is more than the entire gross domestic products of Vermont and Wyoming, and as large as the economy of Alaska or Montana. California produces nearly all of the almonds, artichokes, avocados, broccoli, carrots, celery, kiwi, figs, garlic, grapes, raisins, raspberries, strawberries, honeydew melons, nectarines, olives, pistachios, plums, tangerines, mandarins, and walnuts grown in the U.S. About 80% of all almonds in the world are grown in California: The state's almonds alone generate $6 billion annually. But nut trees are water-intensive (though notably less so than the alfalfa and pastureland grown for animal agriculture), and unlike seasonal crops, they cannot be fallowed in a dry year. Given the lack of water in 2021, some farmers have been forced to resort to tearing out valuable almond trees and instead planting less thirsty crops.

About 80% of the state's developed water use goes to the agriculture industry, so anyone who enjoys eating fruits and nuts should be concerned that climate change is increasing the odds of megadroughts permanently drying California.

Changing climate is supercharging southwestern droughts

According to the 2020 study in Science cited earlier, human-caused climate change made southwestern drought conditions between 2000 and 2018 about 46% more intense than they would have been naturally, "pushing an otherwise moderate drought onto a trajectory comparable to the worst [U.S. southwest] megadroughts since 800 CE," the heyday of the Mayan civilization.

It's not just California; 96% of the western U.S. is currently experiencing drought conditions, including the entire states of Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. The drought conditions led Utah Governor Spencer Cox recently to urge the state's residents of all faiths to hold a "weekend of prayer" for rain.

Different kinds of drought

There are several different kinds of drought, all worsened by human activity. Dwindling soil moisture is known as "agricultural drought," and is exacerbated by the increased evaporation and transfer of moisture from land to the atmosphere that comes about in a warming climate.

A lack of rain and snow is called "meteorological drought." A 2018 study in Nature Climate Change used climate models to predict that California's precipitation patterns will shift in a hotter world, with more rain falling in the winter but less in spring and fall months, lengthening the state's dry season. This prediction was borne out in a 2021 study published in Geophysical Research Letters, with researchers finding that "the precipitation season has become shorter and sharper in California" since the 1960s.

"Snow drought" also plays a key role in California, 30% of whose water supply originates from the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains. As temperatures rise, more precipitation falls as rain and less as snow, and the snowpack melts more quickly in the late spring and early summer. A 2018 study in Geophysical Research Letters estimated that global warming has already shrunk the Sierra Nevada snowpack by about 20% and increased early-season runoff by 30%, and that each additional degree Celsius of warming will shrink the snowpack by about another 20%.

Snow drought in California can then lead to "hydrological drought," when water levels fall in rivers, lakes, and streams. In June 2021, California's reservoir water levels were about 40% below the historical average, and the snowpack was completely gone more than a month earlier than normal.

Extensive drought damages felt widely

In addition to its adverse impact on California agriculture, drought results in damaged forests, worse wildfires, reduced hydroelectricity generation, stressed fish populations, and depleted groundwater aquifers. According to the Fourth National Climate Assessment Report, the combination of worsening droughts and expanding bark beetle populations due to warming winters killed 7% of the western U.S. forest area over the past four decades.

The hotter and drier conditions during most of the year, combined with the dead trees, have created more fuel for wildfires, which the report concluded have burned twice as much area in the southwestern states over the past three decades as would have burned in the absence of human-caused climate change. The smoke from those wildfires is dangerously unhealthy to breathe, and in the record-shattering 2020 fire season, the wildfire smoke spread all the way to the U.S. east coast.

That same report found also that the severe drought between 2011 and 2015 reduced hydroelectricity generation in California by two-thirds. The water level in Lake Mead, the reservoir formed by Hoover Dam near Las Vegas, has fallen by 130 feet to its lowest level since its creation in 1936, and the reservoir has lost 60% of its water volume since 2000. As the National Assessment Report concluded, "The reduction of Lake Mead increases the risk of water shortages across much of the Southwest and reduces energy generation at the Hoover Dam hydroelectric plant."

The lack of surface water also threatens salmon and other fish species in California rivers. And it forces farmers to pump more water from groundwater aquifers, which leads to land subsidence that also stresses infrastructure.

As water resources experts at the Pacific Institute wrote earlier this month, there are steps that southwestern states can take to mitigate drought impacts, "including changes in the efficiency of urban and agricultural water uses, the expansion of non-traditional water sources like stormwater and recycled water, and voluntary changes in behavior." Curbing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels is of course the most important measure to lessen the threat of megadroughts in the future and their impacts on one of America's key food-producing states.

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California, 'America's garden,' is drying out " Yale Climate Connections

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Persistent 'severe' drought is having widespread negative impacts on California and other western states.

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sfenvironment.org - Our Home. Our City. Our Planet

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What Does Zero Waste Mean?

Zero waste means that we send zero discards to the landfill or high-temperature destruction. Instead, products are designed and used according to the principle of highest and best use and the waste reduction hierarchy:

Everyday Actions Towards Zero Waste

Even though San Francisco has dramatically reduced the amount sent to landfills, half of what is sent can still be recycled or composted.

Composting and recycling more can help residents, businesses and city government save money, conserve natural resources, and protect our climate. San Francisco has already set a North American record for recycling & composting, but we'll need your help to reach zero waste.

Is Zero Waste Possible?

The City and County of San Francisco believes achieving zero waste is possible. In San Francisco, over half of what still goes in the landfill bins can be recycled in the blue bin or composted in the green bin. SF Environment will continue to promote best practices, including reducing, reusing, recycling and composting.

To strive for zero waste, SF Environment will continue to advocate for state legislation and partner with producers to develop a producer responsibility system, where producers design better products and take responsibility for the entire life-cycle of a product, including take-back and recycling.

Zero Waste Resources

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Zero waste means that we send zero discards to the landfill or high-temperature destruction. Instead, products are designed and used according to the principle of highest and best use and the waste reduction hierarchy: Even though San Francisco has dramatically reduced the amount sent to landfills, half of what is sent can still be recycled or composted.

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Want to conserve water? Add up your daily water use and get your water footprint with our online calculator, then use the tips to learn how to save water.

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Colorado River Basin has lost 10 trillion gallons due to warming temps, enough water to fill Lake Mead, study shows | CNN

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Human-caused climate change has shrunk the amount of water in the Colorado River Basin by more than 10 trillion gallons since 2000, according to a recent study.

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it's not doing bad :))

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Why is That the Picture it is about Drought

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Why is That the Picture it is about Drought

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Drought is a prolonged dry period in the natural climate cycle that can occur anywhere in the world.

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A drone provides a view of a section of the California Aqueduct within the California State Water Project, located near John R. Teerink Pumping Plant.

The California State Water Project (SWP) is a multi-purpose water storage and delivery system that extends more than 705 miles -- two-thirds the length of California. A collection of canals, pipelines, reservoirs, and hydroelectric power facilities delivers clean water to 27 million Californians, 750,000 acres of farmland, and businesses throughout our state.

Planned, built, operated and maintained by DWR, the SWP is the nation's largest state-owned water and power generator and user-financed water system. The project is considered an engineering marvel that has helped fuel California's population boom and economic prosperity since its initial construction.

For the last 20 years, the California State Water Project's average water is 34 percent for agricultural and 66 percent for residential, municipal, and industrial.

The State Water Project also plays an important role in efforts to combat climate change. Not only does it help California manage its water supply during extremes such as flooding and drought, it is also a major source of hydroelectric power deliveries for the State's power grid.

Benefits of the SWP:

The primary purpose of the SWP is water supply delivery and flood control, but it provides many additional benefits, including:

Power generation

Recreation activities

Environmental stewardship

DWR manages the California State Water Project (SWP) to ensure adequate water supplies are available under various hydrologic and legal conditions while maintaining operational flexibility.

DWR also develops, plans and implements the operation of the SWP in coordination with environmental and regulatory agencies to meet fish, water, and environmental requirements for the Feather River and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Additionally, the SWP coordinates closely with other water storage and water users that utilize the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed. The other agency that operates in a similar fashion to move water throughout California is the federal Bureau of Reclamation's Central Valley Project (CVP).

Learn more about DWR's operations and maintenance.

The SWP is operated in a manner that protects endangered and threatened species under the State and federal endangered species acts.

DWR does this in part through compliance with a permit granted by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW), called the I ncidental Take Permit.

DWR also conducts water quality monitoring for the SWP. This program is currently managed by the Division of Operations and Maintenance, Environmental Assessment Branch. Initially, this program sought to monitor eutrophication (an increase in chemical nutrients) and salinity in the SWP. Over time, the water quality program expanded to include parameters of concern for drinking water, recreation, and wildlife.

While the majority of the SWP was being constructed in the 1960s, public agencies and local water districts signed long-term water supply contracts with DWR. Today, the 29 public agencies and local water districts are collectively known as the SWP long-term water contractors or simply, SWP water contractors .

The water supply contracts (which expire in 2035) sets forth the maximum amount of SWP water a contractor may request annually (see Table A amounts, below). However, the amount of SWP water available for delivery will vary yearly, based on a number of factors, including:

Hydrologic conditions

Current reservoir storage

Delivery requests from the SWP water contractor

Learn more about State Water Project management.

Note: The first map below shows State Water Project contractors, reservoirs, conveyance systems, and power generation and pumping plants. Use your mouse to hover or click on designated locations or icons for additional details. You can also use the legends on the right side or bottom of the maps for navigating to specific locations. Zoom in to see labels and navigation points more clearly.

The map below shows reservoir storage and aqueduct flow data for the California State Water Project. All data used for this map comes from the California Data Exchange Center and should be considered preliminary data and subject to change. Please email media@water.ca.gov if you have any questions regarding this data.

Resources

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The California State Water Project (SWP) is a water storage and delivery system of reservoirs, aqueducts, power plants and pumping plants extending more than 600 miles-two-thirds the length of California.

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What is Ecology? Learn about Ecologists & Our World

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Ecology is the science of life and environment. Understand the work of ecologists and why ecology is key to sustaining ecosystems and biodiversity.

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We're living in the midst of a global biodiversity crisis. Wildlife populations have declined by an average of 69% since 1970, a rate unprecedented in human history. And a landmark UN study released in 2019 revealed that around 1 million species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades.

The science is calling for urgent, transformative action, and now is the moment to lock it in. Countries are currently meeting in Montreal to negotiate a new global framework under the Convention on Biological Diversity, the international agreement for protecting nature. We're calling on leaders to commit to an ambitious agreement-one that halts and reverses nature loss by 2030 while conserving 30% of lands, oceans, and freshwater ecosystems globally, known as 30 by 30. It also needs to call for cutting our global footprint of production and consumption in half, address the major drivers of nature loss, and mobilize significant new resources in support of the framework's goals, including by redirecting harmful subsidies towards helping nature. All of this needs to be done using an inclusive, rights-based approach that involves the whole of society, including local communities and Indigenous peoples.

While the US remains one of a small handful of countries that has not ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity, it has nevertheless taken important steps to protect nature both at home and around the world. In particular, the Biden administration has launched several major initiatives over the past two years to align the US with many of the goals being pursued right now in the negotiations of a new Global Biodiversity Framework. Here are some of the ways it is taking action:

1) America the Beautiful

The America the Beautiful initiative sets a nationwide goal to conserve 30% of US lands and waters by 2030, in line with the global 30 by 30 goal. It emphasizes support to locally led initiatives and a combination of both protected areas and other effective conservation measures, working cooperatively with communities, Native nations, and those who manage working lands and waters, including private landowners, foresters, and fishers.

2) US Plan to Conserve Global Forests

Announced at the 2021 international climate change negotiations in Glasgow, this initiative seeks to protect forests and other carbon-rich ecosystems, including by halting global deforestation and the illegal timber trade. In support of the plan, President Biden pledged to mobilize $9 billion by 2030, alongside similar commitments from other countries.

3) 2022 Earth Day Executive Order

On Earth Day this year, President Biden signed an executive order that directed the administration to take a number of actions to address nature loss and promote biodiversity conservation. Several of these are focused on protecting forests in the US and around the world. Others mandate the creation of a system to measure and account for nature's economic value and a roadmap to use nature-based solutions to fight climate change, both of which were recently rolled out. Nature-based solutions are a critical tool for conserving biodiversity while also reducing carbon emissions and strengthening the resilience of people and ecosystems to climate change impacts.

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3 ways the US is taking action to protect biodiversity

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Countries are currently meeting in Montreal to negotiate a new global framework for protecting nature under the Convention on Biological Diversity, the international agreement to protect biodiversity. We're calling on leaders to commit to an ambitious agreement-one that halts and reverses nature loss by 2030 while conserving 30% of lands, oceans, and freshwater ecosystems globally, known as 30 by 30.

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What does a water crisis look like? Along the parched shores of Lake Mead on the Colorado River, it appears as a giant bathtub ring, a sun-bleached stain marking the reservoir's steady decline.

The ring is Mother Nature's measuring stick. Over 16 years of extreme drought, Lake Mead's water level has fallen a startling 135 feet. The nation's largest reservoir is now filled to just 37% capacity - its lowest levels since the Great Depression, when the lake was first being formed following construction of the Hoover Dam.

Lake Mead is a stark symbol of the growing threat facing the entire Colorado River basin, laid low by the worst drought in the West in more than a century.

The reservoir's surface elevation has flirted with 1,075 feet for the last several years - the level at which the Secretary of the Interior declares a water shortage for the states in the Colorado River's lower basin.

Without collective action by the federal agencies, the States, and the water users, current projections show there is approximately a 50% chance shortages will take effect in January, 2018.

The river's drought-related problems are being compounded by constrained and inflexible water management laws in a region so thirsty that, in most years, demand exceeds supply.

Under this complex system, more water is annually allocated to the seven Colorado River states and Mexico than the basin can provide, especially in dry years, creating a water deficit that threatens supply to roughly 36 million people and 6 million acres of land. It is only by depleting the basin's vast storage supplies over the last 16 years that the basin has been able to meet demands.

This week in Las Vegas, just 25 miles from Lake Mead, the Colorado River Water Users Association is meeting to try and make tangible progress on ways to address the most urgent problems.

The Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Estevan López will lead the federal delegation to the conference, which will also include officials from the Colorado River basin states, the Mexican government, Native American tribes and the private and non-governmental sectors.

The Walton Family Foundation supports reforms to policies that drive overuse of water, and is committed to solutions that restore healthy rivers and a healthy regional economy. The foundation supported the development of a recent survey by the University of Colorado's Colorado River Project, which produced recommendations for immediate steps to ease the strain on the Colorado River and its tributaries.

While comprehensive change will take concerted effort, over years, here are the survey identified as urgent priorities that should be addressed immediately:

1. Complete negotiations between the United States and Mexico to better manage river flows across the international border.
This would extend and expand an agreement, due to expire in December 2017, that includes joint investments in conservation projects, short-term water exchanges and sharing of water shortages and surpluses.

2. Stabilize water levels on Lake Mead.
The federal government should support efforts by states in the lower Colorado basin (Arizona, Nevada and California) to complete a drought contingency plan to lessen the impact of over-consumption through management of water demand. Should those state efforts fail, the federal government should find a workable alternative.

3. Agree on drought contingency plans for the Colorado River's upper basin.
The federal Bureau of Reclamation should finalize a memorandum of understanding with upper basin states (Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico and Colorado) on interconnected drought operations for reservoirs of the Colorado River Storage Project.

4. Resolve tribal water claims.
Several Native American tribes in the Colorado River basin have outstanding claims that, left unresolved, create uncertainty over how to manage water demand over the long term. It's essential the federal government work to reach deals to settle those claims.

5. Improve federal coordination on Colorado River management.
The Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture can advance water conservation efforts and address the impacts of drought through better collaboration, using their respective expertise to identify projects that address several problems at once.

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5 Ways to Help Preserve the Colorado River Now

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Finding solutions for a river threatened by drought and overuse of water

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The Red Cross provides drought preparedness tips by conserving water and limiting water use. Learn more about drought preparedness and water conservation today!

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Southeast Arizona Drought Page

Local Drought Information Statement (DGT) is issued once a month when portions of southeast Arizona

are in Extreme (D3) or Exceptional (D4) drought per the U.S. Drought Monitor Map below.

The latest DGT was issued on July 29, 2022

Experimental Drought Information Statement Page

The categories of drought are defined as the following:

Abnormally Dry (DO) - Going into drought: short-term dryness slowing planting, growth of crops or pastures. Coming out of drought: some lingering water deficits; pastures or crops not fully recovered.

Moderate Drought (D1) - Some damage to crops; pastures. Streams, reservoirs, or wells low, some water shortages developing or imminent. Voluntary water-use restrictions requested.

Severe Drought (D2) - Crop or pasture losses likely. Water shortages common. Water restrictions imposed.

Extreme Drought (D3) - Major crop/pasture losses. Widespread water shortages or restrictions.

Exceptional Drought (D4) - Exceptional and widespread crop/pasture losses. Shortages of water in reservoirs, streams, and wells creating water emergencies.

Useful links:

U.S. Drought Monitor

Arizona Droughtview

Arizona Department of Water Resources

U.S. Drought Portal (NIDIS)

Fire weather impacts

Observed Fire Danger Class Forecast Fire Danger Class

click on images for larger view

Outlooks

Current month fire potential 1 month fire potential 2 month fire potential 3 month fire potential

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Southeast Arizona Drought Page Local Drought Information Statement (DGT) is issued once a month when portions of southeast Arizona are in Extreme (D3) or Exceptional (D4) drought per the U.S. Drought Monitor Map below.