[deepnotderp]

This is purely a result of the fact that water is so cheap and water rights don’t incentivize water saving technologies.

There are residential and agricultural technologies that dramatically reduce water usage. For instance drip irrigation. Also the city of Las Vegas recycles almost all the recyclable water and consequently is extremely efficient at using water

[bumby]

Can you elaborate? I agree water cost does not tend to incentivize conservation and leads to what seems to be inappropriate choices of crops for example. It’s also interesting how the idea of water rights in the East/West evolved differently because of scarcity. Is your point that the problems in the West would be solved by more expensive water?

I’d worry that it would upend agrarian economies (in the short and medium term, at least $