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Water is a crucial
building block for life,
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for farming, for food, and for showers.
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Often water comes from far away.
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For example,
over half of Southern California's water
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is pumped out of
the Colorado River.
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It is then transported up
and over a mountain range
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to be used in cities and farms
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But as rainfall
and temperatures change,
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scientists are seeing
a megadrought
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emerging the American West.
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And much of that long-term drought
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is centered right over
the Colorado River.
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Which means giant cities like L.A.
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and rural farms alike
could see a strain
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on their water supply.
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In this episode, we'll learn
why this drought is so bad
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and find out what lessons
we can learn
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from people who have
lived in the Southwest
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for thousands of years.
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A drainage basin is an area
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where precipitation collects
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and runs into
a particular body of water.
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The basin in the Colorado River
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spans seven States
and two countries.
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40 million people
count on it's water
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but what happens when rivers dry up
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and the water you're counting on
doesn't come.
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To understand, I first asked
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water and drought scientist,
Brad Udall, what's going on.
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In 2000, a drought began
that now 20 years later
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is the most severe drought
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since gauges were
installed on the river
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in 1906 in some places.
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The flow is down about 20%.
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Drought is usually defined
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as a period of
abnormally low rainfall
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leading to a shortage of water.
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But Brad told me
that this drought is a bit different.
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That's because while rain is down,
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that doesn't fully
account for the low water levels
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We now actually have a new
term for this
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it's a hot drought.
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So higher temperatures dry out the earth.
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And what we're finding is
that higher temperatures
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lead to greater evaporation
in all its forms.
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And that evaporation is the
cause of this decline in flow.
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In other words, as temperatures
increase over time,
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the process of evaporation
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takes more water away from rivers, lakes
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and snow-capped mountains.
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This helps explain why river flow
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in the Colorado basin is down 20%
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despite precipitation only
being down by 5%.
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And droughts do end,
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but according to many scientists
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waiting for rain in this case
is probably not a good idea.
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The term "drought" implies
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some kind of return
to normal at some point.
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Drought implies temporary,
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and most scientists nowadays
have started talking
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about the aridification of the West,
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meaning a more permanent
move to a dry state.
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(car engine roaring)
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Few people understand
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the threat of drought
better than Nancy Caywood.
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She's a fifth generation
farmer in Pinal County
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where water either comes
from the Colorado River
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through the Central Arizona Project canals
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or from other rivers and canals
in the Colorado basin.
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This represents liquid gold.
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This is our water supply right here.
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We take it out, there's a gate right there
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and it goes down a little lateral canal
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that takes it right to our farm.
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I'm gonna open up this gate,
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we have the gate open,
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we'll open four of them,
allow the water to flow in.
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We have about 135 acres of alfalfa.
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This is an example of flood irrigation,
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one of the oldest and most
common irrigation methods
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which distributes water over the soil
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by allowing it to flow
downhill with gravity.
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There's a beautiful simplicity to it,
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but it's actually the least
efficient way to irrigate
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as much of the water
either evaporates away
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or seeps into the soil out of
reach of the plants' roots.
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And on top of that, alfalfa
is a very thirsty crop,
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which means the beef that comes
from the cattle it feeds
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is the highest water use
food commonly available.
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Drip and sprinkler irrigation
can be much more efficient,
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but Nancy told us she's not been able
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to get the permits needed
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to change the irrigation
style on the farm.
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And the Caywood alfalfa
fields are in good company.
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60% of farmland in the Colorado basin
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is used to grow feed crops.
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Combine all that demand,
and here in Pinal County
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is where the drought hits home.
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The last time the reservoir
was full was in 1992.
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One year, we had nothing
planted on this farm at all.
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In 2019 water in Lake Mead,
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the nation's largest
reservoir, dropped so low
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it triggered the first cutbacks
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in water allocations ever in the basin.
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Pinal County farmers were the first
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to have their water reduced.
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Fields lay fallow, prepped
and ready, but unplanted.
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This is a fallow field
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and we just didn't have
enough water to plant it.
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We have 120 acres of fallow land.
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Good news here is, since about 1980
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American water use has actually gone down.
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Even in growing American
cities in the South West,
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total consumption has gone down
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despite pretty big
increases in population.
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But worldwide irrigated agriculture
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uses upwards of 70% of water in rivers
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and municipalities use much,
much less, 20% or less.
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That's partially due
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to household water conservation efforts,
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but it's mainly due to the way
cities and homes use water.
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When you shower, wash dishes
or even flush the toilet,
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that water is treated and returned
to surface or groundwater
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rather than evaporating.
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The same goes for some industrial uses.
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But the largest opportunity and challenge
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to reduce water use
is in the agricultural sector.
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That's because water used for farming
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either becomes part of the growing plants
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or it's lost to evaporation,
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meaning it doesn't return
to the hydrologic cycle
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for a very long time.
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Scientists say this is
the worst drought in 1200 years,
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but the Hopi you have lived in this area
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for over 2000 years and have
grown food through it all.
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We met up with Max Taylor,
a Hopi Water Resources technician
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to find out if lessons
from one of the oldest communities
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in the United States can
be applied to modern life
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in the drying Colorado basin.
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The Hopi's been known
to use the least amount of water,
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than people throughout
the whole United States,
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it's just because we live in the desert,
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here we are more aware of how much you use.
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And so the use is very little.
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So we're down at my field.
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This is my blue corn, they're planted here.
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All of these are dry farmed.
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I don't do any irrigation.
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And the technique we use
is you clear off an area.
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You'll dig a hole down about
maybe eight to 10 inches deep,
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get maybe eight or 10 kernels of corn
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and toss in there.
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The wet moisture that you've taken up,
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you push them back in,
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then you cover it with dry soil.
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And that's dry farming.
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His garden is planted in a low lying area
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to collect the little
moisture that falls each year.
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And his crops are extremely
adapted to the region.
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They're planted far apart to
avoid competition for water,
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and they grow very deep roots
that tap into groundwater.
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Right now we're in September.
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You can still feel a little bit of moisture
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in the ground, see that?
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Not much, but just enough that
it's still keeping them going
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Amazingly Max uses seeds for
his own farming consumption
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that produces crops in
what seems like dust
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with no irrigation.
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He's never watered this field.
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We have seeds that are being passed on
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from generation to generation.
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So they're adapted to this dry climate.
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The corn's been with the Hopi
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at least several thousand years.
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I think the lesson to learn
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is that you have to live
within your environment.
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And I think that's how the natives
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have survived in these areas
because they were sustainable.
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And we know this country.
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Shifting towards crops appropriate for
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and adapted to their environment
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provides a vast opportunity
for water conservation.
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That shift can happen
on farms or in cities
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when we choose to eat foods
that need less water to grow.
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On paper, a shift from feed
crops and cattle makes sense.
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But if we wanna adapt
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to our warming climate in an equitable way,
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we can't write off farmers
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like Nancy and the families
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that have fed us for generations.
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We would like to continue farming.
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We don't plan on giving up this farm.
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We are looking into alternatives,
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we're looking into alternative crops,
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we're looking at water
conservation irrigation techniques.
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Alfalfa takes seven to nine acre feet
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of water a year to grow it.
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Olives would take about one
and a half acre feet of water.
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But if we were to get into say olives,
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there'd be a lot of soil preparation.
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So it costs us a lot money to get started.
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But the question is, can
we come together as a country
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and implement techniques to reduce the strain
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on our water supply before
they're even more shortages?
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We need to be ready
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for some really big changes coming at us
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that are frankly outside
of our comprehension.
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This is how we make the
best out of a bad situation
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and stand by those
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who end up facing the biggest
changes and challenges.
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And while we focus
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on the American Southwest in this episode,
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drought does affect almost
every part of the country.
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So practicing water conservation
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as a part of your daily life can help you prepare
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for when water supplies run low in your region.
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Some of the most effective
things you can do today
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are not that hard.
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For example, never leave a faucet running
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when it's not being used,
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like when brushing your teeth or washing dishes.
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Make sure to fix leaky faucets
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and choose energy and water efficient appliances.
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If you want to get more involved,
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you can place a brick in the tank of your toilet
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so it uses less water for each flush,
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or convert your lawn to a beautiful landscape
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that doesn't need irrigation.
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Or even install a rainwater catchment system.
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Of course, there's another thing we can all do,
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and that's to fight
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the underlying cause of this drought, climate change.
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The future of this drought is unwritten
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and the less warming we create
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the brighter our water future will be.
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So check out the excellent show, Hot Mess
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for more ideas about what can be done.
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And of course, subscribe
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to keep up with all of our episodes of Weathered.
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(soft music)