[murderberry]

It's pretty complex, though. If a farmer pumps water out of the aquifer directly underneath, irrigates crops, and most of the water (minus evaporation and crop biomass) is returned to the aquifer in a matter of days... is it fair to say the farmer wasted it? Modern irrigation systems easily have an efficiency of 80-90%.

Some irrigated farms in the Central Valley will be withdrawing from aqueducts, but part of the reason why the valley is dry is because we built these aqueducts, harming agricultural land for the benefit of SoCal cities, with the promise that the farmers would be able to use that water. So not sure it's fair for us to claim the moral high ground.

Much of the California water crisis is manufactured too. There's no shortage of freshwater for the foreseeable future, but we're not building new dams, aqueducts, etc, essentially relying on the infrastructure built in the 1960s and before, for a population only fraction of what we have right now. Climate change plays a role, but the bulk of the pain is self-inflicted and has little to do with growing rice or watering our lawns.

[AceJohnny2]

> and most of the water (minus evaporation and crop biomass) is returned to the aquifer in a matter of days...

Citation needed.

Counter-citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_land_subsidence