What is the takeaway, though, from looking at drought in this "% in drought over 5 years" manner? For example, central Texas had horrible drought for much of this time, only to end in severe flooding. Seems like a better metric would be average total rainfall over this period, and then year-to-year variance.
A very high-quality submission full of good visualizations of interesting data.
The narrative in the article describes the rationales for arriving at some of the visualization formats. This was as much of a 'making-of' article as a presentation of the end results; highly recommend.
The great news is 2016 has a great year for drought recovery... so far: https://www.drought.gov/drought Hopefully California can get some love.
Here in Kansas, we're having an uncharacteristically wet summer. Many of my friends that planted corn, milo, and hay are looking at major bumper crops this fall.
Related note about fracking in the midwest: Water can be drilled for at 100ft-600ft usually. Despite that shallow depth, It will take 6,000+ years to restore the aquifer in the unfortunate event that the resource is not conserved.
With the average oil/natural gas well depth of 3,500ft in the central midwest, it's important to remember that these wells are far below a region where they could affect the water table. Careless and irresponsible operators spilling toxic solvents is the real danger that needs to be addressed.
This should also dispel the myth that the Keystone pipeline poses a major risk to the aquifer, if every engineering precaution were to break down and the worst happen.
Now if we could just figure out a way to cheaply transmit all this wind power we have in the midwest back east....
The comment about the Keystone pipeline is a bit non sequitur. The Keystone pipeline has nothing to do with fracking at all and has nothing to do with oil wells in the US central midwest. It will carry unconventional heavy crude from the Athabasca oil sands in Northern Alberta to refineries along the US gulf coast. Plus currently, Oil sands is generally mined not drilled -- though as the oil on the surface runs out there will be more in situ wells if the economics can support. Thus far most of the extraction of Athabasca oil sands has been done by open pit mining.
The objections to the Keystone pipeline have two main focal points: (1) the risk of spills given the heavy crude is more difficult to clean up, and (2) that it will ease the extraction of oil and put more green house gasses in the atmosphere.
Basically all Aquifer's are used faster than the recharge which only works for so long. The Ogallala Aquifer is one example, but most of California pumps out water vastly faster than the recharge rate. This is not only used directly but also adds water to the water cycle which for example increases rainfall. Without that extra water things are going to get a lot dryer.
There will probably never be desalination cheap enough for irrigation, and non-agricultural uses don't add up to enough to make desalination nescessary.
The key form CA is not to replace all water sources, but rather close the gap between rainfall and water needs. Right now, we are doing this by pumping ancient water from aquifers, but as solar power and desalination techs mature, the price will come down and will likely be sufficient to cover that gap. The recycled water will also factor in.
There is a considerable interest in California re: what Israel has done to conserve and increase its water supply. Israeli technology is likely applicable to California's water supply issues and cooperative ventures should be fruitful.
That plant has less than 20% of libia's desalination capacity and 6% of Saudi Arabia. There are 16,000 desalination plants world wide the US has less than 5% of the worlds capacity much of which sits unused.
Sure there are good reasons for this, but US water use is still incredibly wasteful.
