[ghshephard]

Long, Long before there was any shortage of drinking water, the various water authorities would simply increase the prices of water to levels which reduce residential usage.

The problem in California isn't lack of water for individual use (for the most part, there are a few small communities that are having to truck in water), it's the impact on Agriculture, which is hugely important to the economy of California, and our general food security.

If you were wondering why there aren't more water restrictions for individuals, (Like leaning on people hard to take shorter shower, or use low-flush toilets, or ultra-low-flush toilets) - here's why: Changes to individual use will only have a small impact on our water use - 80% is used for agriculture. Individual restricting use by 20% will only have a 4% impact on overall water use.

With that said, there is a lot of room for California to transition to a "Desert Water Existance"

In 2011, the average californian used about 326 gallons/day of water. With water restriction, that can, with a little bit of expense, and changes in landscaping (no green lawns), be brought down to 150 gallons/day, and with a bit more expense (typically around the toilet), be brought down to 100 gallons/day with some lifestyle changes (typically shorter showers).

On the flip side, California almonds use 1.1 trillion gallons of water each year. That one crop uses enough water to support a population of about 30 million people @ 100 gallons a day.

For individual water use, though - a lot of the California population is right beside the ocean. Desalination costs about $0.75/cubic meter (264 gallons) based on recent Singapore Desalination plant deployments. If we didn't want a lifestyle change, then 329 gallons / day * 30 days / 264 gallons * 0.75 = about $28 to generate the water needed to maintain our lavish California lifestyle (add some more for distribution, which is reasonable for coastal cities without distance or elevation for pumping.

This only works for individuals though - Agriculture needs cheap water to be sustainable, and much of the farmland is too far away from the coast (or too high), too make for economical distribution.

[vacri]

In 2011, the average californian used about 326 gallons/day of water.

I am gobsmacked - this is a phenomenal amount of water. This is an order of magnitude more than we use here in Melbourne. 326 gallons = 1230 litres, whereas we use ~ 230 litres per person on average. I'm genuinely puzzled by how you use so much water every day.

Previously at the end of a 10-year drought and very low reserves, the government target was 155 litres/day, which was easily done - our household was using about 65-75 litres/day/person, while still doing laundry, daily showering, and keeping a garden. And while we were water-conscious, we weren't particularly strict about it.

I just can't fathom how so many people are using so much water on average every day. Even your tightest suggestion (100 gallons) is double what we're using now in non-drought mode.

[ericabiz]

Not just in Melbourne, but even here in the US that's a lot!

I just pulled up my monthly bill to confirm--my current bill reflects 33 days of service, and is for 3900 gallons. I live in Austin, TX in a single-family home that typically has 3-4 adults in it (me, my roommate, and an Airbnb that's booked out almost every day with 1-2 additional adults.) That 3900 gallon usage, or 118 gal/day, is for all of us combined. So it's quite doable in the US!

I think the biggest contributing factors are:

1) We don't water the lawn. Ever.

2) I've installed all extremely energy-efficient appliances, including new toilets, a washer and a dishwasher that use very little energy.

3) We don't take baths--only showers.

I never feel like I'm scrimping when it comes to water. In fact, if anything, I think we do way more laundry/dishes than the typical household thanks to having an Airbnb and wanting to keep everything clean for our guests.

My conclusion: Americans are going to have to give up on their green lawns, and prioritize energy efficiency in appliances, to get to this level. But it's really doable here in the US.

[ghshephard]

That's an "average" - it varies quite a bit. San Francisco uses around 100 Gallons/Day.

Things like toilets/showers/washing machines are the major indoor elements for high water consumption, California is starting to adopt all of the technologies that Australia has pioneered for decades - things like low flush toilets, low volume showers, low flow faucets, etc... But it will take time (and money) to update the infrastructure.

Also, much of the water use comes from outdoor use - a lot of green lawns in California that are going to have to go away. Also, leaks are a major components.

In order to get to 100 Gallons/day, people are going to have to give up their lawns. And stop filling their swimming pools.

There is zero chance, outside of a major disaster like an earthquake, that Californians would ever use "65-75 liters/day/person" - that's 17 gallons/day/person. You'd see broad deployments of solar powered desalination plants first.

[ptaipale]

Indeed. I live near Helsinki, Finland. Here the average consumption is 155 litres per person per day. That is 40 gallons. So the average Californian consumes almost ten times as much water? That's crazy.

And our consumption is not so modest because we'd be short of water; clean water is the one natural resource we have in abundance here. A drought in the sense of California (or even Britain) is just completely unknown thing here.

By the way, the consumption of water is higher in blocks of flats than it is in detached houses. This is because in detached houses each family or household pays for their own water, but in condominium houses the bill is typically shared among all the flats and the paid out in the maintenance fee.

This applies often even to hot water, so there have been cases where a single old man tells his neighbours that he lets hot water run through the sink just so that he gets even with the family with three small children in the neighbouring flat.

[timr]

This is true for more rural areas, but the bigger cities (i.e. San Francisco) don't share water with farms. Farming does use a ridiculous amount of water in aggregate, but it doesn't do us any good to discourage city dwellers from their responsibility to conserve.

That said, it's pretty obscene to drive through the central valley and see people growing rice for acres and acres. In the desert.

[ghshephard]

Most of San Francisco's water comes from Hetch Hetchy, which is fed by the Tuolumne River.

Wikipedia tells me this about Tuolumne: "The river's water has been a source of contention for many years. About 15% of the total flow is diverted to San Francisco from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, which floods an eponymous valley in the Sierra Nevada once compared to Yosemite Valley for its natural beauty. Further downstream, about one-half of the river flow is diverted at La Grange Dam to irrigate farmland in the Central Valley."

It looks to me like there is agriculture competition for San Francisco's water.

[timr]

There's agriculture competition for the river, not the reservoir. The city of SF owns the reservoir.

But it's not very informative to say that there's competition for the river, because there's obviously competition for water somewhere, since it all comes from the same places. My point is that the water rights are secured for most of the major cities in California, and we're not in the position that if we cut back our domestic usage, the farmers will use it all up. We're conserving so that we don't drain our reservoirs.

[ghshephard]

"There's agriculture competition for the river, not the reservoir. "

Given that in this case, the "River" feeds into the "Reservoir" - the two water bodies can be viewed as the same entity for purposes of water sourcing. Given that only 15% of the Tuolumne is needed for the Reservoir, and 50%+ is required for Agriculture, the major drain on the Tuolumne is not San Francisco residents, but Agriculture. San Francisco may have rights to the Tuolumne, but I don't know whether they are Sr. to the Central Valleys, or, what happens if San Francisco has to turn off the water downstream in order to keep Hetch Hetchy full.

But - I do see your point, it's not the case that all water comes from the same place - there's lots of reservoirs that can't be used for Agriculture in the Central valley. For example, Crystal Springs, a 70k cubic meter reservoir in San Mateo, is entirely for urban use. There is no agriculture competition for it. Every gallon we conserve there, is another gallon conserved for city use.

But - it's important to realize, Cities and Agriculture are in competition for the Sierra Nevada water. And every gallon that goes to the farms, is one less gallon that goes to the residents. As the cities conserver more, and more, reducing showers to 5 minutes, and switching to Ultra-Low-Flush .5 gallon flow Toilets, that water is going to become more valuable to city residents, than it will be to agriculture.

I'm not suggesting we don't cut back residential usage - I'm a huge fan of conservation (and an even bigger fan of efficiency) - but, I am saying that we could go to emergency rationing of 50 gallons/day (down from 329 gallons currently), and agriculture could still use up all the Sierra Nevada water. The inverse isn't true - if Agricultural use somehow cut its water use by the same percentage, it would be difficult for residential use to consume the existing supplies.

[seanflyon]

Water is fungible.

[ghshephard]

But expensive to transport relative to its value.

[seanflyon]

Expensive to transport in some cases but not others. In the scenario I was responding to it is quite cheap to transport water form the mountains past the farms to the cities because water flows down hill. Water that is not used in farming is available for use in the cities.

[ghshephard]

Right - that was my point as well - but you can only do that calculation in certain scenarios. Unlikely with a fungible product that has a high-value compared to its cost of transporting, in which case you can do it in many more scenarios.

I first heard the word, "fungible" from Dick Cheney of all people. It was in the context of Canada selling Oil through its ports to the Chinese instead of building a pipeline down to the United States, and his was response was, "That's fine. Oil is fungible." - I.E. Canada Selling Oil to the Chinese would be just as beneficial to the United States, as Canada Selling Oil to the United States, because the oil that we sold to the Chinese, would free up oil from other sellers, which would then go to the United States. All that mattered was that oil was produced and placed on the "Global" Market.

Water, on the other hand, is expensive to distribute compared to its generation, so water from Crystal Springs Reservoir, all 70,000,000 m^3 of it, really only has value for residential use. There is no agriculture competition for it.

In the case of the Sierra Nevada - I think we both concur that water is useful for both residential or agricultural use.

[Someone]

"Changes to individual use will only have a small impact on our water use"

Every single farmer can argue the same way ("I only use a tiny fraction of what the state as a whole uses, so it won't help" or "almond farming only uses 10% (I'm making up this number), so it won't help if we, almond farmers, economize on water use")

Everybody can find a group they are in that will have a small impact.

[ghshephard]

The difference between residential and agricultural use, is that the price each pays for water is different enough that we are starting to see arbitrage, in which agricultural water rights are being sold for residential use. If the drought continues, we could start to see a large-scale decline in lower-value agriculture in California, particularly anything that is water intensive. We're unlikely to see a decline in the residential population of California because of water.

[seanflyon]

The point is that the vast majority of the water is used by a small minority of the people.

[lisper]

But that small minority uses that water to produce food, which is used by everyone.

[jwr]

On every visit to the US (I'm from Europe), I find it amazing how much water gets wasted. Monster-flush toilets, vertical-axis washing machines, and the most egregious offender: hotel shower. The first time I saw those, it took a while before I realized you just can't limit the flow of water, by design.

[ghshephard]

Depends on the part of the United States. California has laws mandating low-flow toilets, showers, and interior faucets. That's been the code for the last 20 or so years.

Last year California became the first state to require re-fitting all existing structures with low-flow systems: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/23/low-flow-toilets-re...

[mhb]

Where did you go? Some places have plenty of water. We don't all live in California.

[vacri]

In my travel across the US, I noticed exactly one washing line - put up in a hostel room by a Swede (no doubt they're not quite that rare, but I didn't see them). When summer comes along and the electric grid starts to fail, I hear a lot of Americans talking about the burden of airconditioning, but it's very rare that they talk about tumble-dryers, which gobble a hell of a lot of power.

[ghshephard]

We had controlled rolling grid outages in the United states when an combination of poorly thought out deregulation and the machinations of Enron (who organized for the shut down plans in the middle of peak usage) drove the wholesale cost of electricity into the stratosphere.

There is a pretty major water crisis in the western states, particularly California, but very little in the way of "electric grid failures."

[opendais]

Many, many people use gas tumble dryers in the US. They are slightly more upfront but 50-75% cheaper in the long run to operate.

[Gracana]

Most people hang their laundry somewhere in their back yards, not the front.