Talk:Droughts in California

"Drought" versus "Drought in California"
Some of this page covers drought in general as opposed to how it specifically affects drought in California. Such content belongs, if not already present, on the Drought page.

This page would best be edited to focus on what the effects are on California and how California policies, economics, and geography, among other things, affect the presence or absence of drought in the state. Thisisnotatest (talk) 06:03, 8 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I don't know why you removed the Prod. You didn't rewrite the lede.  You only added one ref.  The page is still nothing but some short statements, with some personal opinion thrown in. Nothing was done to address my concerns.  Content has been copied from other pages and has not been given credit.  I'll hold off doing a deletion discussion for a bit and hope things improve.  Bgwhite (talk) 07:57, 8 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I removed the prod because it is highly likely that the subject is notable. Deletion is not cleanup. Here's where I edited the lead. Thisisnotatest (talk) 08:49, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
 * By the way, thank you for your patience. Wikipedia is not on a deadline. Thisisnotatest (talk) 23:11, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

"California Drought" vs "Drought in California"
Why was this article renamed from "California Drought" to "Drought in California"? If you do a Google search for "Drought in California", the top 5 hits are "California Drought". "Drought in California" is nowhere on the first 5 pages of hits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.185.178.7 (talk) 22:27, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

duplicate article
We have been working on an article with the same title over at Draft:Drought in California for a long time, and have many sources etc. I'll go ahead and merge that in to this article. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 21:04, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Incomplete Years
The years missing 90s to 00 is this reflective of a no drought period? Because it doesn't say in the article. I can attest though because I moved to California in 95 and recall the shock of how much, how often and how long it rained; it started in the night and continued all the next day. There were several news reports of houses sliding down hills from excessive rainfall. Then it just ended and by 2003 "drought" was used to describe changes in weather. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.165.101.102 (talk) 19:35, 27 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Following a drought, the ground is parched so an intense rainfall will not absorb into the soil but will runoff and cause mudslides. California definitely follows a cycle of droughts/fires and mudslides.  Mudslides is an important topic to add to California droughts.  Some intense storms occur in the El Nino phase of the ENSO cycle, and this variation between cycles is also the natural climate of California.  El Nino and La Nina phases are a natural form of climate change in California. FinancialCents (talk) 03:42, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Time Magazine Refs
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=california%20drought%20site%3Atime.com  Bananasoldier  (talk) 03:26, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Other coverage
to link to/merge with:
 * Climate_change_in_California
 * Water_in_California
 * Climate_of_California Section on Precipitation

Wikidata
Pls don't forget to link it on Wikidata after u published it. Thx.--Sanandros (talk) 10:31, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Outline/references to be used

 * 2015 governor's call to reduce water
 * state legislation water bills
 * studies that say we only have a few years of water left
 * controversy; grapes, almonds, farming, fracking
 * desalination, graywater, rainwater efforts
 * http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6606406
 * http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/us/as-california-drought-enters-4th-year-conservation-efforts-and-worries-increase.html
 * http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/us/california-drought-tulare-county.html
 * http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/08/greywater-california-drought_n_7026350.html?cps=gravity_2845_4287863301200062915
 * http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/7105202?cps=gravity_3967_8077936099995124900
 * http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/7184616
 * http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/7297484?ir=Green
 * http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/7424572
 * http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/7297484?ir=Green
 * http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/7424572

Water shaming

 * http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/california-drought/drought-shaming-apps-target-california-water-wasters-n167651
 * http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/drought-shaming-californians-snitch-neighbors-who-waste-water-n157451
 * http://www.kcra.com/news/no-more-nice-guy-ca-naming-shaming-water-wasters/32258002
 * http://www.businessinsider.com.au/stop-water-shaming-people-heres-what-to-do-2015-4
 * http://www.kcra.com/news/almond-shaming-targets-california-growers-for-water-use/32290146
 * http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/04/27/woodside-may-resort-to-publicly-shaming-water-wasters-who-can-afford-fines/
 * http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/23/droughtshaming-water-vigilantes-in-calif-humiliate-wasteful-neighbors/
 * http://www.today.com/news/drought-shaming-california-water-vigilantes-snitch-their-neigbors-t15896
 * http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rich-californians-youll-have-to-pry-the-hoses-from-our-cold-dead-hands/2015/06/13/fac6f998-0e39-11e5-9726-49d6fa26a8c6_story.html?tid=HP_more?tid=HP_more

Drought management and mitigation

 * Mitigation measures
 * management plans
 * Conservation

Greywater

 * End.  Bananasoldier  (talk) 04:25, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Mega-Droughts & Paleoclimatology of California
Shouldn't there be a section on Cal droughts that preceded "recorded" history? There are literally dozens of scientific articles on the mega-droughts of the previous 1000+ years, many lasting decades and a couple lasting centuries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.69.226.170 (talk) 18:31, 10 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes it is most essential. I have added it and would like it to be the intro. FinancialCents (talk) 03:36, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

2018 drought
Please can the section on 2018 be started - appears to be blank, with no description of this year's rainfall.John a s (talk) 09:06, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

This article is incredibly biased
Instead of actually discussing the causes of drought in California, which is the movement of storm systems farther north or south aided by climate change, it spends a large amount of time discussing how California is 'wasting' water in order to protect the environment and critically endangered species. It also brings up the issue of reservoir capacity without discussing cost, which is the primary reason they have not been expanded. It doesn't make financial sense to spend billions increasing reservoir capacity in order to save millions of dollars of water.

Some of the articles used are opinion pieces too.

Here are some good links for expanding the page:

Costs of reservoirs can easily run into the billions, such as a $5.1 billion proposed project in Colusa County: https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/05/11/massive-northern-california-reservoir-project-scaled-back-to-reduce-costs/

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is vital to many species, and the Delta Smelt are only a symptom of human activity in the area. The delta also plays a vital role in Salmon migrations and the commercial fishing industry in California: https://www.watereducation.org/aquapedia/sacramento-san-joaquin-delta

The article also has no mention of how snowpack stores about 65% of California's water supply. https://www.drought.gov/drought/california-no-stranger-dry-conditions-drought-2011-2017-was-exceptional

The article also has only two sentences on one of the largest concerns of droughts in California, which are the massive wildfires sparked during dry periods.

I think this article needs to be looked at, it seems to be pushing political ideas as 'solutions' without actually discussing why things are the way they are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fulldemon (talk • contribs) 15:55, 28 October 2020 (UTC)


 * good idea - go ahead and edit Chidgk1 (talk) 10:36, 5 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Agreed, this article is basically a collection of cherry-picked facts supporting an anti-regulation, pro-agriculture agenda, which seems to not even understand the definition of the word "drought." Darkest Tree   Talk  22:07, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * It seems that most of the Climate Change section needs to be deleted and replaced. It comes across as biased because it discusses climate change in general not as it applies to California.  More relevant material is available that does not imply one perspective since there is a scientific basis to the climate of California. FinancialCents (talk) 21:25, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Major revisions needed by meteorologist/climatologist
I have begun to make revisions to this page on Droughts in California. The article has been lacking content by meteorologists or climatologists. The content had begun essentially with "droughts are caused by lack of rainfall" which is closer to a definition than a cause. There are various causes of droughts and some happen in California that do not happen elsewhere (and vice versa). A drought could be caused by an El Nino Southern Oscillation phase or a persistent anticyclone like the "Ridiculously Resilient Ridge," for instance. Since there are many different definitions of droughts and different types of droughts, I first updated the general Wikipedia page on Droughts and then linked to it, pulling a couple of key sentences. What is most important IMO when looking at the causes of droughts, for California, is that drought is a recurring feature innate to California's climate. That is not true everywhere. The climate records assembled over 1,000 years that I am mentioning correspond to a region that is today California but California only dates back to 1850. The reader does not know the region of the study from the article title. It is important to distinguish from all causes of droughts and the droughts that are specific to California. The notion of the climate (climate = Normal Usual Weather) is the essence of droughts for this particular state [hence the relevant intro] because droughts are not anomalies in California. For California, they are built in. Droughts may be anomalies elsewhere. Also, I would like to delete the early sections to which I have made cursory edits; right now I am thinking through how to replace them with accurate material - not a straightforward thought process since early sections do not convey meaningful information. The rainy season was not stated correctly and I did edit that, but I feel precipitation patterns could be better in a later section with a more detailed description of climate regions. I expect to make updates to the page Climate of California which has a section on Precipitation. This section ought to relate to droughts and compliment the Droughts in California article, but the page also needs material from a meteorologist/climatologist. Climate would be a reliable opening for droughts, since it is by far more important that droughts have always occurred in California, based on 1,000 years of scientific evidence, than to say that droughts are caused by a lack of rainfall (the definition of drought). FinancialCents (talk) 01:22, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Health and the Environment in the Central Valley
— Assignment last updated by Oscott101 (talk) 17:50, 14 November 2022 (UTC)