WaterSimulations reveal California’s resilience to extreme droughts

The results from a series of several-year-old computer simulations reveal that the state of California may be more resilient to long-term drought conditions than previously believed.

As theLos Angeles Times reports, researchers, in their simulation, subjected the region to seven decades of punishing mega-drought conditions similar to the worst the area had experienced in the past millennium. The study sought mainly to account for the effects on current environmental, social, and economic infrastructure.

“The results were surprising,” said Jay Lund, the director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences and one of the architects of the study. “California has a remarkable ability to weather extreme and prolonged droughts from an economic perspective.”

Incorporating the geological record into their tests also revealed that the area is actually in a largely wet period —– meaning that the region could still handle drier conditions than what residents have seen over the past several years. Some infrastructure might actually be over-prepared for the amount of water it can handle.

“We built it [California’s aqueducts] on the assumption that the last 150 years is normal. Ha! Not normal at all,” said paleoclimate expert Scott Stine, a professor at Cal State East Bay. “The weather record that we tend to depend on in California for allocating water…is based on about 150 years of really quite wet conditions when you look back at, say, the last 8,000 years of so.”

In the simulationby Lund, Stine and others, California experienced seventy-two years of intensive drought. While there was the loss of farm acreage, struggling fish populations, and damage to ecosystems, it was not the apocalyptic scenario that many predicted.

“Cities largely did OK aside from higher water costs, since they have the most financial ability to pay for water,” said Lund, “So the predominant part of the population and economy felt the drought, but was not devastated by it.”

“Mega-drought doesn’t mean no water,” summarized Peter Gleick, the president of California think thank Pacific Institute, “It will mean using what we get more effectively.”

Most likely, the state is already adjusting to this reality and expanding the resources it has to better manage the water supply and lessen the blows of future mega-droughts. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is currently constructing an intensive water treatment facility in the San Fernando Valley that would treat wastewater in a “toilet to tap” system that, while previously derided, could contribute greatly to the available supply.

Additionally, cities are focusing on long-term projects that will focus on having large percentages of California’s water demand be met by conservation efforts and clean-up groundwater basins. Debra Man, the Southern California Metropolitan chief operating officer reports that by 2035, 60 percent of the region’s water needs will be fulfilled this way.

Further, experts argue that the reprioritization of crops could reduce the amount of water needed and better prepare farmers and farmlands to withstand a prolonged dry period.

Daniel Sumner, the director of the University of California Agricultural Issues Center summed it up well: “In a sense, we move back to the future.”