How Much Rain Is Needed To Ease The Drought?

from the chart, statisically speaking, there seems to be a trend.

And the time to conserve, is when you have a reserve.

ONE WAY TO EASE DROUGHT IS TO HARVEST THE RAIN THAT COMES TO YOUR AREA. HOW YOU SAY? SIMPLY BY USING SAND BAGS ACROSS ANY OR MANY SMALL RIVERS OR STREAMS.. SIMPLY BLOCK SOME DRY RIVERS OR STREAMS BEFORE THE RAINS COME. TO A DEPTH OF 1 to 4 FEET... WITH SANDBAGS.. ANYONE CAN DO THIS.. THIS TEMPORAY DAM WILL HOLD BACK SEVERAL THOUSANDS OF GALLONS OF WATER THAT WOULD CERTAINLY BE EVACUATED DOWN THE RIVER. JUST WASTED RAIN. THE RAIN NEEDS TO BE HARVESTED IN YOUR AREA.. AS/WHEN THESE TEMPORAY DAMS DRY UP THEY WILL MOISTED YOUR LOCAL ATMOSPHERE..CAUSING COOLER TEMPERATURES, MORE DEW ON THE PLANTS, LESS NEED TO WATER CROPS AND LAWNS, CAUSING MORE GROUND COVER TO GROW AND LIVE...THE GROUND COVER CAUSES MORE GROUND SHADE WHICH EQUALS COOLER TEMPERATURES FOR YOUR AREA... SO AS A COMMUNITY START SOME SAND DAMMS IN YOUR AREA AND YOU CAN EXTEND YOUR WATER AND GROWING SEASONS BY FOUR TO SIX WEEKS EACH YEAR. METRIC BUDDHA

Stop being a victim, build desalination plants....

If only it were that easy. We're having a hard enough time trying to get enough power as it is - without cranking up carbon emissions.

Desalination takes a lot of power (we're not blessed with enough sunshine to make solar evaporation remotely practical, so it'd have to be heating or RO or ?).

Gotta go nuclear....We need plants that produce electricity when needed, provide fresh water when needed, and produce hydrogen when needed....The plants need to produce no nuclear waste or very little, and be meltdown proof...We have the technology, we just need the plants to be designed and built...

Quite agree - but the design/build time-lag is the problem, plus inertia and NIMBY-ism.

With electricity at >£0.13/kWh and desal water at >3.5kWh/m³? Naaaah - it's cheaper to pump it out of the ground and rivers.

When the local river goes into spate and closes the road to the south the effect can be an interesting experience.

There is a pumping station downstream that lifts some of the torrent into the local reservoir 10 miles away. It needs to be going hell-for-leather at the moment!

One problem with periods of less than average water, will be an overuse of water. At a time when conservation is important, we always get the opposite. From the picture, there seems to be a lot of agriculture practiced. If the crops are water demanding, farmers tend to withdraw more than needed. Golf courses are another big user of reservoirs and in times of drought the greens and fairways demand all that much more. Homeowners should be prohibited from watering lawns. Timing of use of water could help and mid-day irrigation should be taboo for everyone. The community could build other reservoirs that could feed the main reservoir in these low water periods. Or you could also use some ground water located at elevated levels to feed the reservoir. Bringing water from other areas could be a possibility but may be prohibitive in terms of cost or practicality. Of course, many restrictions will be required and monitoring of withdrawal rates. One gets used to the periods of excess and its hard to turn around and conserve when it is required.

Somehow, it seems educating the users about conservation and irrigation optimization is required. Perhaps charging more for water will be an incentive to conservation.