California should take urgent and bold measures to adapt its $59 billion agriculture sector to climate change as the amount of water available for crops declines, according to a collaborative report by University of California faculty from four campuses.
California should take urgent and bold measures to adapt its $59 billion agriculture sector to climate change as the amount of water available for crops declines, according to a collaborative report by University of California faculty from four campuses.
Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the report provides a roadmap for more water capture, storage, and distribution systems that are in harmony with climate projections and ecosystems. It further considers how runoff and groundwater can be used repeatedly as it flows generally from mountainsides to coastal lands.
“The availability of water for consumption is decreasing because of climate change, partly due to increased evaporation and transpiration but also because we don't have the system set up to capture and use the larger and more variable flows that are now the norm,” said Kurt Schwabe, a public policy professor at UC Riverside and co-author of the report.
Read more at University of California - Riverside
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