The pdf link to the article is OPEN ACCESS.
The law of unintended consequences, aka human nature, strikes again.
Water rights and water usage will be the next big battle of the west, later the US, and then the world.
Neither does my lameass shower head. Takes twice as long toshower and I can’t find one without stupid water saver device.
Video captures massive meteor as it lights up sky in Canada Link the source.
Study Shows Green Tea Reduces Risk of Heart Disease
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
“Drip irrigation also generally increases crop yields, which encourages farmers to expand acreage and request the right to take even more water, thus depleting even more of it.”
What they heck does that mean???
Basically they produce more food with less water. Which would seem to be the goal, no? But that’s bad because when they succeed they want to do more of it and that’s bad...
The world is upside down.
I’m not quite sure of the line of reasoning here. Apparently it doesn’t “save” water because not as much water is returned to the acquifer. It would seem that if less water is needed, then less water will be taken out of the acquifer in the first place. Relative to the acquifer taking out less should result in less loss.
However, the crux of the concern seems to be that the farmers will ask for MORE water (note that this results in MORE agricultural products) and this seems to be the primary objection.
Am I missing something?
It is more efficient, in other words. It does not seep back into the ground or run off (aquifer recharge areas tend to be uphill from the point in the wellbore where the water is removed). As for recharging the aquifer, only if the aquifer recharge area is directly below the plants, and then one would just be taking the water out and letting it soak back in--likely increasing any contamination from surface sources.
Drip irrigation also generally increases crop yields, (IOW, It works) which encourages farmers to expand acreage and request the right to take even more water, (because it works) thus depleting even more of it.
Thus using more water more efficiently to produce more food. (but depleting the aquifer less to do so per unit of biomass in the first place). Duh.
NO one has yet mentioned the government’s foray into to toilet design. The premise is wrong to start with IMHO. Would someone explain to me how you waste water. Humans consume it for life, but we exhale vapor and excuse the expression, urinate the remains which goes back where it came from. Water can neither be created nor destroyed. No one but God himself knows the limit on the supply, if indeed there is a limit, and I suggest there will be sufficient for as long as earth remains habitable for man.
Government begins with the same letter as God, but any similarity after that, is purely coincidental.
I guess in NYT land, creating successful technologies that farmers can and want to use to increase their productivity and production is bad thing.
Or more food = bad...?
This is interesting since a number of States in Australia have banned regular sprinklers and watering systems for home gardens and only allowed drip sprinklers.
People reluctant to get a PhD and enter academia for fear of not being able to get research grant money should look no farther than this study to realize the bar is set very, very low for getting grant money.
Guess they couldn't trust people to follow watering guidelines.
My guess is drip irrigation would tend to evaporate too quickly.
The problem here is not drip irrigation, which works, saves money, and increases yields. Which, I might add, might be augmented in the future by plowing packing peanuts into the soil, which captures and holds rainwater and improves the overall soil moisture and fertility.
The problem is aquifer replenishment. Just using wasteful traditional flooding irrigation won’t help that problem, only slow down the rate of loss a little.
What it needs is literally replenishment, and that can only be provided by precipitation from nature. And since normal levels of rain aren’t enough, then the alternative is harvesting air humidity.
On the Hawaiian island of Kauai is the rainiest place on Earth. This is because it has an extinct volcano, and one of the walls of the volcano collapsed, making a “catcher’s mitt” in just the right direction to capture the predominant humid air current. It is an exceptionally beautiful place, where it rains almost constantly.
While that is an ideal situation, there is no reason much less efficient, but still practical, man made humidity harvesting can’t be done, even far inland.
Using the desert southwest as an example, once a year for about a month in summer, the “monsoon” of humid air comes North from Mexico, bringing with it some rain, but mostly just high humidity.
A single, South facing mountain could be to some extent hollowed out into what amounts to a giant water tank. Above it, winding caves could be mined, with entrances high up on the South and exits low down on the North, where there are large fans to pull air into the tunnels.
The tunnels would be filled with cooling coils to make the humid air condense into water droplets that would flow into the giant storage tank below.
The system would be powered by a small solar farm, that would store energy year ‘round to power the fans and cooling coils for the monsoon month.
While it wouldn’t produce enough water for agriculture, it would strongly reduce the amount needed to be taken from the aquifer, helping it to replenish itself naturally.
“The first method has been used by farmers for generations. It’s known as rain.”
I love my home drip irrigation system. It covers my food crops, herb seasoning crops, my fragrant plant area and a few flowers.
Is it wrong to love it even more now that I know it’s politically incorrect!?!?!
~grin~
A hydrologic and economic analysis of the Upper Rio Grande basin in the Southwest, published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that subsidies and other policies that encourage conservation methods like drip irrigation can actually increase water consumption.Thanks neverdem.
Now that I have said that, let me say that if the government would remove most of the restrictions on Nuclear power plants, we could build a series of small ones, such as are used in Naval vessels, anchor them securely along the coast and use them for water desalinization. If the greenies really had mankind's and the planet's welfare at heart they would be looking at things like that. With Nuke desalinization we would never need to worry about water and drought again.
The point is the left doesn't really care about the planet or the people on it, except for how they can control them. Restrictions are placed on us to control us and for no other reason. We need to start pushing back, hard.
They should try “Brawndo” - it’s got Electrolytes. It’s what plants crave.
This is just loony, circular logic. They note that drip irrigation fails to recharge the source while FAILING to note that it draws less water from the source to begin with! The article lost me right here. If the author or the study can't handle this simple concept, I have no faith in the rest of the work.
This is the kind of backward thinking that makes people want to spend money so they can get more back from their 5% reward. Yes, but you spent the 95%, idiot.