Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Smushman 4114 days ago
It is hard to tell if you are trolling, a California farmer, or just being plain obtuse.

tl;dr - NO. It would not make a difference.

Google your question. The answer is below for you.

Source: KCET article. February 10, 2014.

California's water budget is skewed heavily toward agriculture. The conventional estimate is that 80 percent of the water used in California flows into the state's multi-billion-dollar agricultural sector.

1 comments

No, I'm actually asking the question since Wikipedia's quote is "In an average year, about 40% of California's water is used for agricultural purposes". Which makes me wonder about how far down California is that it is now 80%?
The figures used in the Wikipedia article include "environmental" water use (water that flows to the sea in streams, etc. most other sources do not include this in their figures. Environmental "use" accounts for 50% of total water use in the state and why Wikipedia's 40% for Ag is everyone else's 80%.
It depends on how you count, due to overlap, such as rice paddies that are flooded with water releases that eventually head downstream. That could be counted under environmental or ag. If you take out the environmental water, ag is 80%.