California drought

The Meticulous Engineering Behind Your Neighbor’s Fake Lawn

As the drought in Southern California continues for a fourth punishing year, depleting groundwater reserves and demanding large-scale restrictions on usage, residents are regularly forced to confront the more unsustainable aspects of contemporary American life. For many, that means swapping their natural lawn for a simulated version. Can you tell which California lawn is real…

Tech News Ian Besler May 15

California Still Needs 11 Trillion Gallons Of Water To End Its Drought

Despite recent rains in California, it’s still going to take about 11 trillion gallons of water for the state to recover from its historic and ongoing drought. Shockingly, that’s around 1.5 times the maximum volume of water in the U.S.’s largest reservoir. Top map: NASA scientists combined data from GRACE and other satellite missions to…

io9 George Dvorsky Dec 17

California’s Ongoing Drought Is Its Most Severe in 1,200 Years

A recent study published by the American Geophysical Union concludes California’s ongoing megadrought is the worst the state has seen in more than a millennium. Photo Credit: Robert Couse-Baker | CC BY 2.0 “While 3-year periods of persistent below-average soil moisture are not uncommon,” geoscientists Daniel Griffin, of the University of Minnesota, and Kevin Anchukaitis,…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 4

Hunting for Water Leaks in California’s Drought

California is wasting water, even when we don’t realize it. Our aging underground water pipelines—in some cases nearly a century old—invariably spring leaks, thousands of them that add up to 23 billion gallons a year in California alone. 23 billion gallons. That’s enough water to provide for 71,000 households for a year, lost to these…

Tech News Sarah Zhang Oct 8

In the 1960s California had a serious plan to take water from Alaska

It’s so ungodly hot in much of California right now that you can almost hear the sun sucking what’s left of our reservoirs dry. But if a group of engineers and politicians would have had their way in 1964, the lower 48 would be swimming in water imported from the far North—all the way from…

Tech News Alissa Walker Sep 16

California’s Drought Is So Bad, Its Mountains Rose Half an Inch

Water is heavy—ask anyone who screwed up the Ice Bucket Challenge. And California and the rest of the West Coast have precious little of it. The water is so depleted, it’s not weighing down the earth’s surface—and geologists have measured a rise of up to 15 millimeters at GPS stations across the West. Poring over…

Tech News Bob Sorokanich Aug 23

Just How Bad Is California’s Drought? Here’s A Scary, 10-Second Answer.

California continues to dry up. The latest figures indicate more than 80% of the state is in extreme drought, or worse, exceptional drought. These are sobering numbers, to be sure, but for an even better perspective on the drought’s unprecedented progression, check out this GIF, created by L.A. Times reader Alvaro Valiño. Each frame of…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Aug 9

California’s Drought Is So Bad, They’re Drinking Toilet Water

At this point, we all know that California’s superdrought is bad—really bad. We don’t yet know how Californians are going to cope with the consequences. According to a recent billion dollar allocation of taxpayer money for water recycling programs, drinking toilet water is one way. Don’t throw up quite yet. Water recycling refers the process…

Climate Change Adam Clark Estes Apr 17

California just had its warmest winter on record

California just had its warmest winter since record keeping began 119 years ago, according to newly published NOAA data. Meanwhile, the midwest is recovering from one of its top-ten coldest seasons ever. The jury’s still out on the role of climate change in both regions’ wintertide weirdness. Tim McDonnel has details on the debate at…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Mar 13

How to Conserve Water During a Drought

California is facing “perhaps the worst drought that [it] has ever seen since records (began) about 100 years ago,” announced Governor Jerry Brown in a recent press conference after declaring a drought emergency for the state. Here are four easy ways to minimize your water usage until the rains come again. Go Low Flow Reducing…

Tech News Andrew Tarantola Jan 27

California’s terrifying drought, summed up in two satellite images

California has declared a state of emergency after enduring months of a drought that has left the state with only half the rainfall of the lowest rainfall year on record. Nothing captures the foreboding more than these two stark images. California farms supply food to many other parts of the country and the world, so…

io9 Annalee Newitz Jan 22

The Meticulous Engineering Behind Your Neighbor’s Fake Lawn

California Still Needs 11 Trillion Gallons Of Water To End Its Drought

California’s Ongoing Drought Is Its Most Severe in 1,200 Years

Hunting for Water Leaks in California’s Drought

In the 1960s California had a serious plan to take water from Alaska

California’s Drought Is So Bad, Its Mountains Rose Half an Inch

Just How Bad Is California’s Drought? Here’s A Scary, 10-Second Answer.

California’s Drought Is So Bad, They’re Drinking Toilet Water

California just had its warmest winter on record

How to Conserve Water During a Drought

California’s terrifying drought, summed up in two satellite images

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