Topic 2: Desalination: Who? The societies that choose to use desalination as part of their water resource management strategy tend to have lots of energy and money. 75% of the world's desalination capacity is in the Middle East and the USA is a major desalinator as well. Also, places like the UAE that receive 3-4 inches of rain per year and have no major rives are faced with desalination as their only option for expansion.
Topic 3: Introduction to Cadillac Desert- Issues addressed:
a. Threshold for growing crops without irrigation = 20 inches/year
b. Threshold for "arguably no place to inhabit at all" = 7 inches/year
c. Salinity of CO river at US-Mexico border = 1500 ppm
d. Salinity a serious problem in San Joaquin Valley of California, the "most productive farming region in the entire world”
e. "Virtually every drop of water in the state (CA) is put to some economic use before being allowed to return to the sea."
f. “In the East, to “waste” water is to use it needlessly or excessively. In the West, to waste water is not to consume it- to let it flow unimpeded and undiverted down rivers.”
g. “The problem in California is that there is absolutely no regulation over groundwater pumping, and, from the looks of things, there won’t be any for many years to come.”- you should be able to discuss the concept of groundwater as a renewable or non-renewable resource, rate of pumping vs. rate of recharge, drawdown, cone of depression, and subsidence in the context of groundwater overuse.
On Friday, we will Continue our discussion of the dams and water resource management in the American West. Please read Chapter 4 in Cadillac Desert before class.
Slides shown in lecture today have been posted as a .pdf to Sakai.
The my maps page has been updated with the locations mentioned in today's lecture.
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