W6 Research Blog

Quentin Miller
22 Mar., 2018
Senior Project
W6 Research Blog
Water in the American West
Water is a vital natural resource for many different human processes from personal hydration to irrigation for crops. The requirement for water in so many different things that people need, both directly and indirectly, means that each person needs/uses a lot of water each day. In many areas of the United States where annual rainfall is above 30 inches, water shortages or challenges surrounding finding the water needed to satisfy water needs are not usually a problem. However, many parts of the United States do have water shortage problems or uncertainty regarding water supply.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the western part of the United States. In this vast region, many troubling factors and trends surrounding water use and climate combine to create situations of uncertainty, risk, or even shortage of water. Most of the American West receives far less rainfall than other parts of the United States; many areas are arid and other parts are some of the driest deserts on the planet. At the same time, this part of the country is home to over 50 million people and grows nearly 20% of the nation’s crops/produce. The combination of this drastically elevated demand (especially driven by agriculture) with the relatively high scarcity of water creates a highly problematic situation what has and continues to cause many controversies surrounding water use and the management of the water supply. On top of this, global warming and climate change appear to be making many areas of the West more dry and experience years of extreme drought. In the West, agriculture water use makes up the vast majority of total water use. In many agricultural areas in the West, which there are a lot of in the West, water often needs to be transported by aqueducts or canals for hundreds of miles from natural water sources. This high rate of diversion for agricultural (and other) uses creates many negative impacts on the environments of where the water was diverted from and throughout whole watersheds.
Diversion of water can wreak havoc on whole ecosystems. One notable example is the Colorado River which runs through the Grand Canyon and, at not long ago, emptied out into the Gulf of California through an expansive, complex, and biodiverse delta ecosystem. However, for over a decade, diversion of the river’s water for agricultural and other uses has caused the river to run completely dry many miles away from its mouth. Where there was once a unique, thriving delta ecosystem, there is now only dry sand and silt. In other circumstances, lakes like Mono Lake (just east of Yosemite National Park) have been reduced by many figures and are now only the fraction of their natural sizes.
As human populations in the West continue to increase and more water is required, more diversion systems are often proposed and/or constructed to satisfy this demand. It is important to note that, in many cases, the vast majority of the diverted water which is used for agricultural purposes is inefficiently used. These issues, combined with the vital need for water, creates many controversies in the present day that appear on a larger, more fundamental level of human development and activity in the West as well as with each new water, housing development, or agricultural expansion projects. In each case, people are faced with weighing human need for water against the health of the environment and the potential challenges with sustaining such a large level of water use in such a dry region. Many often justify projects that would increase the demand for water by arguing that such projects will be beneficial to satisfying the demand of the West’s human population for crops or other goods. Regardless of which argument is correct, in order to more responsibly approach water use and exploitation, all individuals should be educated more extensively about water in the West.
Bibliography
Glennon, Robert. “The Water Crisis in the West.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29


Guo, Jeff. “Agriculture Is 80 Percent of Water Use in California. Why Aren't Farmers Being


Lustgarten, Abrahm, and Propublica. “A Free-Market Plan to Save the American West From


NPR. “How A Historical Blunder Helped Create The Water Crisis In The West.” NPR, Fresh Air,


Plumer, Brad. “Everyone's Worried the West Is Running Out of Water. The Reality Is Way More


“America's Water Crisis.” Discovery, Discovery Channel, 1 Aug. 2016,

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 12, 2018 at 1:25 PM

    I'm always learning something new from your research blogs. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete

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