News Desk
ISLAMABAD/LOS ANGELES: As near-record rainfall has battered California for weeks, causing floods and landslides, scientists have cast doubt that even this much precipitation will not reverse the western US state’s decades-long water scarcity and doubt.
California’s water scarcity woes
As California witnessed staggering volumes of rain and snow since December, San Francisco received more rain in the last two weeks than it has seen in the last 150 years. Similarly, the famous Sierra Nevada mountains have received as much as 33 feet (10.5 meters) of snow this winter.
Peter Gleick, the co-founder of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, a research organization that specializes in water issues, said that it was difficult to quantify exactly how much rain has fallen from the sky.
“But we are definitely talking about trillions of gallons of water,” he told AFP.
He said that there was no doubt that the water they were getting now was a great help in eliminating the drought. He said that it was too soon to say that the drought was over.
Gleick said that the year 2023 could be a wetter year than normal but they will have to wait until the end of winter to know for sure.
The western parts of the US have been in their 23rd year of drought, with major rivers and dams at a fraction of capacity.
Data showed that Lake Shashta, California’s largest reservoir, was only 42 per cent full even after all this staggering rain.
The monster snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which is currently twice what it normally is in January, is most supportive because it provides the gradual run-off that drip-feeds reservoirs in drier months.
Geologist from the University of California in Davis, Nicholas Pinter said that California faces a much deeper-seated problem with its depleted groundwater.
According to a report from the California Natural Resources Agency, almost half the of measured wells in California had seen their water levels decline in the last 20 years.
According to scientists, the recent torrents of rain were not all that effective at recharging the wells as the soil became saturated quickly, so instead of being absorbed, subsequent rains just ran off.
Pinter said that groundwater was like a retirement account. “It is slow to go in and we have to withdraw it very, very carefully. He said that only a lot of California residents draw on that retirement account as if it was the savings for tomorrow.
California’s vast agricultural sector, which supplies a swathe of America’s supermarkets, was a heavy user of this underground water.
That intense water need, coupled with big cities such as Los Angeles that have nowhere near enough of their own water to support their populations, meant almost no matter how much it rains, it will not be enough.
Pinter said that there will be no end to the discussion of drought in California because drought in the state was largely driven by water demand.
