California drought
Throughout history, California has experienced many droughts, such as 1841, 1864, 1924, 1928-1935, 1947-1950, 1959-1960, 1976-1977, 2006-2010, and 2012-2017. As the most populous state in the United States and a major agricultural producer, drought in California can have a severe economic as well as environmental impact. Drought may be due solely or in combination to weather conditions; economic or political actions; or population and farming. The article will touch on the causes of drought, such as lack of new infrastructure, limited reservoir capacity, leaky distribution systems, etc... Also following up with the effects of these droughts and their impacts on the state of California, short term and long term. Then discussing the top historically droughts throughout history and finishing with possible responses, which will discuss mitigation and adaptation to the droughts that can possibly be implemented.
Water in California is very closely managed, with an extensive pipeline network to serve the most populated and dry areas of the state. Precipitation is limited, with the vast majority of rain and snowfall occurring in the winter months, in the northern part of the state. This delicate balance means that a dry rainy season can have lasting consequences.
Very few large-scale water projects have been built since 1979, despite a doubling of the population since that year.
Because much of California's water network relies on a system of pumps to move water from north to south, large volumes of water are often lost to the Pacific Ocean during winter storms when river flow exceeds the capacity of the pumps. This is further complicated by environmental rules which restrict pumping during certain months of the year, to protect migrating fish. In water year 2015, 9,400,000 acre feet (11.6 km3) of water flowed through the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, but only 1,900,000 acre feet (2.3 km3) were recovered into water distribution systems.
Most of California's major reservoirs serve important flood control functions. Due to the limited capacity of river channels and dam spillways, reservoirs cannot be quickly drained before major storms. This limits how much of a reservoir's capacity can be used for long-term storage. Reservoirs in California are designed to control either rain floods, snowmelt floods or both.
In the coastal and southern parts of the state, and much of the Sacramento River system, the primary threat is rain floods in the November–April wet season. Oceanic "atmospheric river" or Pineapple Express storms can generate massive precipitation in a short period (often up to 50 percent of the total annual rainfall in just a few storms). This requires a certain safety margin to be maintained in reservoirs, which are often not allowed to capacity until late April or May. Shasta Lake, California's largest reservoir, is limited to approximately 71 percent of capacity in the winter in order to control rain flooding. Levees along Northern California rivers, such as the Sacramento and American rivers, are quite generously sized in order to pass large volumes of floodwater.
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