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PHOTOGRAPH BY PATRICIA E. THOMAS, ALAMY
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For two decades, an ongoing drought has left California, the state that supplies some 40 percent of all the fresh produce grown in the U.S., desperately thirsting for water. (Above, California’s Central Valley, a major producer of fruit, nuts, and produce.) To compensate for the shortfall from rain and snow, farmers relied on pumping groundwater from underground aquifers to the point of overuse.
Alarmed that the amount of water sucked from the ground vastly exceeds what nature can replace, state lawmakers put limits on groundwater use in 2014. In the seven years since, growers and communities in need of water have been scrambling for solutions to replenish their aquifers. One idea: peeling off floodwaters to intentionally flood depleted farmlands and wetlands. Proponents say this is a cheaper, more sustainable solution than building more dams and reservoirs, Alejandra Borunda reports.
“We all know we’ve either got to shrink the demand or increase the supply… and groundwater recharge is becoming the go-to solution,” an irrigation manager in San Joaquin Valley tells Nat Geo.
Read the full story here.
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