California’s four year water drought and residents are being asked to cut their water use and to “let their yards go brown”. Some residents are being thoughtful and not using sprinklers during this tough time, others don’t care about the drought and have their sprinklers running all day. This makes it difficult for California to get back to where they need to be.

A quote by Frances Beinecke, who was  former president of the Natural Resources Defense Council “California’s drought affects everyone in the state, from farmers to fishermen, business owners to suburban residents, and everyone has a role to play in using precious water resources as wisely and efficiently as possible.”

 “Complete drought recovery in California this winter is highly unlikely,” said Mike Halpert, acting director of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, in releasing the analysis. This is due to residents not following the protocol. 

Not only is this affecting our environment but also animals, Droughts tend to lead a chain reaction starting with smaller animals then moving on to bigger ones. Dry conditions lead to fewer nutrients for animals to graze on, and their bodies start to weaken.“I would have liked to see a more directed statewide mandate that would have taken into consideration regional per capita water-use levels,” said Newsha Ajami, chief strategy officer for research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. This four year drought has already caused, damaged forests, worse wildfires, reduced hydroelectricity generation, stressed fish populations, and depleted groundwater aquifers.