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this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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You guys in the US are using up way too much of your groundwater for farming in scorching hot areas like Arizona and Texas even without the Saudis. Isn’t there enough farmland in states with a less hostile climate?
In the past there were enormous aquifers below the surface. The water was under so much pressure that you could tap it and it would erupt like a geyser. So for generations farmers in these areas had what they thought was unlimited water. Now those aquifers are empty or nearly empty and these farmers are resistant to that reality.
Of course no one wants to face this devastating reality…
In the end it will probably be a large wealth transfer from the states without groundwater to the ones that still have groundwater. Farmers will have to buy land in the groundwater states and the land in the dry states will be practically worthless.
I'm a true believer in technology so I'm hopeful that there will be considerable innovation in desalinization so we can continue to farm in arid areas.
Desalinization would only work in getting Los Angeles and San Diego off of Colorado River water.
The big money right now is in sewage treatment. There are several treatment plants in inland cities which treat their sewage water so that it can either be used for agricultural purposes or even get recycled as potable water.
That's interesting I'll have to do some research on that.
One of the more documented cases is the Intel chip plant in Chandler. Intel's plant treats its effluent to potable standards and pumps the water into the local aquifer to store it. Intel has a lot of water there.
Or we could just not live in the desert, living in biomes suitable to us and wasting fewer resources is more viable
I just don't see how that could be accomplished legally or politically.
Subsidies, taxes, tax credits, zoning, etc.
Maybe. (1) I don't think there's the political will to enact anything like that & (2) I don't think that would entice as many people as you think. People get really attached to their home. These areas are growing. The population in the southwest has grown over 11% in the last decade and it's projected to continue to grow.
Doesn't address the entire cities already there. We ain't forcing entire cities to just abandon ship.
It's far more useful if we talk about actually making what's already there sustainable rather than some authoritarian march out of the deserts.
It depends on the crops and the time of year.
A lot of the crops grown in Arizona are fruits and vegetables grown to be harvest in the off-season of typical harvests.
People should note that indigenous groups had also been practicing agriculture along the rivers all through the Mojave and Sonoran deserts. Agriculture isn't the problem overall, unsustainable crops like alfalfa are.
Maybe, but the Hohokam died out before the Columbian Exchange and part of it may have been related to a dry century.
The Hohokam are far from the only group that have lived in those deserts all along the Colorado and it's tributaries