runtheplacered t1_iudtdq3 wrote on October 30, 2022 at 4:00 PM

Reply to comment by Momoselfie in U.S. Streams Are Drying Up. Data showed that in the South and West, streamflow droughts got longer between 1951 and 2020, regardless of threshold. Worse yet, droughts in these regions are becoming more intense by Wagamaga

I'd be curious for someone actually knowledgeable to check in with this. This feels like a very misleading statistic to me. It seems like the water used for agriculture, while technically greater, would still cause less of a localized disruption than a municipal water supply being hit by landscape irrigation.

In other words, I think this understates how much of an impact it would have if everybody stopped watering their lawns, considering landscape irrigation accounts for 50% of all annual residential water usage. Or at the very least stopped over watering it, which is typically what happens anyway.

Momoselfie t1_iue1t3r wrote on October 30, 2022 at 4:59 PM

I don't know about other states, but here in AZ, agriculture makes uo 72% of our total water usage.

Bajabound4surf t1_iuf401v wrote on October 30, 2022 at 9:11 PM

I'm down here for the first time near Yuma and I cannot believe the water waste by the farmers. It's 82 degrees out, full sun and literally a hundred yards from my van they are watering a lettuce field.