Welcome+to+the+Thirsty+West

The recent drought in California has been the most serious it has faced in centuries. Federal water allocation has been reduced to zero for many farms and the energy-intensive infrastructure for moving water around the state is suffering by the lack of snowpack and low reservoir levels. Snowpack is 70% below normal, and the Sierra range is nearly without snow. They claim March is the "make or break month" for the drought.

Arizona is another state that faces extremely dry conditions, and began planning for a future without water decades ago. They sacrificed agriculture for future urban growth, but two-thirds of Arizona's water is still used to irrigate fields. In the 1960s a civil engineering project diverted part of the Colorado river to Phoenix and Tucson, which would not have been able to grow as urban centers without the unnatural influx from the Rocky Mountain snowmelt.

I think it is interesting how we are artificially changing natural ecosystems to become something they were not meant to be. Hopefully in future years California sees adequate amounts of rain otherwise major changes will have to happen to its structure.