2018: The Year of Day Zero and the Mega-Drought

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In 2018, Cape Town, South Africa, one of the wealthiest cities in Africa, faced the prospect of running out of water. Thisย city of four million people was counting downย the daysย to โ€œDay Zero,โ€ when they would turn on the taps and find themย dry.

Ultimately, Cape Town’s water conservation measures helped the cityย narrowly missย reachingย Day Zeroย (forย now).

However,ย the experienceย stands out as a warning of what’s to come for large, developed population centers as climate change puts increasing pressure on the world’s water in unprecedented and unexpected ways,ย from a mega-drought in the American West to drier soils preventing rivers and lakes from recharging when rain doesย arrive.

There was little doubt that Capetown’s three-year droughtย was made worse (and more likely) by climate change, which means the city will have to keep grappling with these challenges in theย future.

โ€œWith climate change we need to do more with less,โ€ saidย Mlungisi Johnson, chairย of the South African Parliament’s Portfolio on Water and Sanitation.

And South Africaย is not alone in thisย challenge.ย 

Why Aren’t More Heavy Rains Filling up Waterย Supplies?

Theย historicย droughts in South Africa, Australia, and the American Southwest were not unexpected consequences of climate change. However,ย a global study led by a team at the University of New South Wales in Australia recentlyย revealedย a troubling development that does not bode well for these kind of drought-strickenย regions.ย 

While โ€” as expected โ€” climate change has resulted in heavier rainfallย (because warmer air can hold more moisture), this study found that these heavier rains are not leading to more available freshwater in large rivers, lakes, andย reservoirs.ย 

Instead,ย warmer temperatures are leading to drier soils that absorb more water from rainfall and allow less of it to travelย through groundwater systems to recharge the rivers and reservoirs that provide drinking water to cities like Capeย Town.ย 

Professor Ashish Sharma, a civil and environmental engineering professor who led the study, was surprised by thisย finding.

โ€œThis is something that has been missed. We expected rainfall to increase,โ€ Sharmaย said in a statement.ย โ€œWhat we did not expect is that, despite all the extra rain everywhere in the world, the large rivers are dryingย out.โ€ย 

Sharma notedย the need to adaptย and re-engineerย water systems on a โ€œmassive scaleโ€ to take this shift into account. He points to Arizona and California as examples of large population centers that were able to do this in order to exist in areas that have nowhere near the rainfall or local water resources to support the existingย populations.ย 

Sharma said these areas have โ€engineered their water supply systems to make previously uninhabitable placesย liveable.โ€ย 

However, considering these areas’ current water woes, they may not be the most promising examples to follow in a climate-changedย future.

The Colorado River Crisis and America’sย Mega-Drought

Without water from the Colorado River, major U.S. cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix would not exist. However, theyย โ€” and the Colorado Riverย โ€” areย facing a water shortage crisis with no easy solution. And withย 40 million Americans relying on the Colorado for water, this is no smallย problem.ย 

The American West currently is experiencing what has been dubbed a โ€œmega-drought,โ€ a phenomenon that hasnโ€™t occurred on the planet in the last 500 years. And as a team of researchers at Columbia University recently revealed, โ€œglobal warming’s fingerprintsโ€ are all overย it.ย 

Park Williams, a professor of bioclimatology at Columbia, saidย that climate change โ€œcaused what would have been a fairly severe drought to become a drought as severe as the most severe droughts of the lastย millennium.โ€

The teamย estimates that global warming made this mega-drought 62 percent more severe. They presented their results at a major earth science conference, but have not yet published them in a peer-reviewed scientificย journal.

Hoover Dam and Lake Mead
The Hoover Dam at Lake Mead. Credit: EcoFlight

Amid that mega-drought, the state ofย water supplies inย the American West is frightening. Since 2000, the water flowing in the Colorado River is 19 percent below the average of the past century. Lake Mead, the lake created by the Hoover Dam and one of the main reservoirs in the Colorado River system, is at 38ย percentย capacity.ย 

The federal government predicts Lake Mead will hit the criticalย โ€œshortageโ€ levelย by 2020, while others are predicting the lake could hit that level inย 2019.ย 

In December, the people and organizations responsible for dealing with this coming crisis met in Las Vegas. They were tasked with creating an agreement on how to allocate the Colorado’s shrinking water resources, whileย knowing that cuts in supply are inevitable. The federal government has given this groupย until the end of January 2019 to come to anย agreement.ย 

As Kathryn Sorenson, director of Phoenixโ€™s water utility, explains, that is no simpleย task:ย 

โ€œThatโ€™s a painful conversation. And of course everyone thinks that their own water use is justified and no one elseโ€™sย is.โ€

Growth in population and agriculture at some point would have created greater demand for water from the Colorado River than could be supplied. However, climate change has brought that day of reckoning far sooner than mostย expected.ย 

University of Michigan climate scientist Jonathan Overpeckย coined the term โ€œmega-droughtโ€ and recently explained why what is happening in the West and around the world has caught many byย surprise.ย 

โ€œThe warming is having a huge effect โ€” a huge effect on water resources and a huge effect on forests,โ€ Overpeck told The Atlantic. โ€œPeople knew there would be an effect, but we didnโ€™t know it would come this big, and thisย fast.โ€

To highlight that point, in 2015 NASA warned that a โ€œmega-droughtโ€ could hit the American Southwest in the โ€œcoming decades,โ€ which The Washington Post reported could โ€œlead to monster wildfires in southern Arizona and parts of California.โ€ But the latest research suggest that it mayย already beย here.ย 

The Water-Energyย Nexus

These thirstyย cities in the middle of deserts also require more and more air conditioning to deal with the extreme heat that climate change is alsoย bringing.ย 

Air conditioning has enabled Arizona to rank theย fifth-highest population growth among U.S. states, but all those humming ACsย requireย electricity. And the majority of electricity produced in America requiresย vast amounts of water. As climate change raises global temperatures and alters water distribution, water use in energy production โ€” and specifically reducingย it โ€” will become increasinglyย important.ย 

That brings up the stark contrast between Americaโ€™s two fast-growing forms of electricity production โ€” fracked natural gasย and renewables (namely, wind andย solar).ย 

A Duke University study thisย year foundย that water use by the fracking industry had risen by 770 percent from 2011 to 2016. New Mexico,ย a state dealing with water shortages, meanwhile isย setting records for fracking production. And it’s basically the same story in Colorado andย Texas.ย 

Meanwhile, as the U.S. Energy Information Administration recently pointed out, producing electricityย via wind and solar photovoltaic (PV)ย uses almost no water.ย 

California State Water Project canal
The California State Water Project was borne out of the state’s acknowledgement that local water supplies andย its share of the Colorado River would not be sufficient for its growth. Credit: Courtesy of the University of New Southย Wales.

Yet as Arizona faces a mega-drought and the likelihood of cutting water use in the near future, the fossil fuel industry successfully fought a ballot measure there requiringย more renewable energy production.ย 

And any agreement among users of the Colorado River is unlikely to adequately prepare the burgeoningย region for what’s coming down the line with climateย change.ย 

Arizona is growing and plans to grow more. Among other plans, a group backed by Bill Gates wants to build a whole new โ€œsmartโ€ city from scratch inย Arizona.ย 

Keith Moses is vice chairman of the Colorado River Indian Tribal Council in Arizona, one of the many groups currently negotiating for its fair share of the river’s water. Moses told The Associated Pressย that he knew that limiting growth was the best way to conserveย water.

โ€œRealistically, looking at it, thatโ€™s not going to happen,โ€ heย admitted.

However, the current water use plans for the Colorado River are considered stop-gap measures; they donโ€™t even address the reality of climate change.ย Tom Buschatzke of the Arizonaย Department of Water Resourcesย saidย these plansย were โ€œnot really a climate-adaptation programโ€ even though โ€œwe are anticipating a drierย future.โ€ย 

That drier (and warmer) future appears to be arriving much faster than expected for places like Cape Town and Phoenix. And yet business-as-usual seems to still be the order of theย day.

Main image: A drought-affected swimming hole. Credit: Courtsey of University of New Southย Wales

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Justin Mikulka is a research fellow at New Consensus. Prior to joining New Consensus in October 2021, Justin reported for DeSmog, where he began in 2014. Justin has a degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Cornell University.

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