Water Wars

Humans do four main things with water:  drink it, take baths and wash their dishes with it, make things with it,  and grow food with it.  But it is food production that uses the most water....an estimated 69% of the world's water use goes toward irrigated agriculture.  This makes agriculture a focus of efforts to reduce waste and improve efficiency.  California's watermaster has just released a report calling for a crack down on inefficient agricultural water use.  Read an LA times article about the report here.  But as the article implies (and the reader comments back up!) any talk about water often generates contentious debate...particularly in the arid west.   These debates seem likely to only increase as the human demand for water increases

We will talk a little bit about these issues in class, but if you want to learn more there are many good books that deal (at least in part) with the contentious issue of water, including Cadillac Desert,  The King of California, and The Great Thirst.   Also, a nice recent book that we recently read in book club is
Water in the 21st Century West.