[rimunroe]

I was surprised to find out it was largely uncovered, though I guess it probably makes it much cheaper to construct. I usually think of aqueducts as pipes or tunnels, like Persian qanāts. I wonder how much water is lost due to evaporation.

[jonathonlui]

There's some testing to see how covering open irrigation canals with solar panels which would reduce evaporation and generate power

> Their analysis found that putting solar panels over the 4,000 miles of California’s open canals could save up to 63 billion gallons of water annually

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/solar-panel-cove...

[masklinn]

> could save up to 63 billion gallons of water annually

To put it into perspective, 63 billion gallons is 193340 acre-feet, which is 0.5% of california's water use (a bit under 40 millions acre-feet). That's a tenth the water consumption of lawns, which is 1/15th the water consumption of agriculture.

[Rapzid]

Or about 4 hours of Mississippi River discharge.

[markdown]

But how many football fields?

[masklinn]

A football field is 1.32 acres, so it's 146470 football-field-feet.

[rimunroe]

Thanks! I forgot that article, but now I remember that I read or skimmed it when it made the rounds last year. It's actually where I first learned that the aqueducts were uncovered!