{"id":459,"date":"2024-04-26T23:40:06","date_gmt":"2024-04-27T06:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/djam.biola.edu\/hopel3\/?p=459"},"modified":"2024-12-20T01:01:04","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T09:01:04","slug":"data-story-ca-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/djam.biola.edu\/hopel3\/clips\/writing\/data-story-ca-drought\/","title":{"rendered":"Did CA’s extreme wet seasons heal its drought?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

JOUR 305 Data Reporting & Visualization required me and my partner scour raw government data records to find a story. Almost two weeks before deadline, we realized our initial project comparing data across generations like Gen Z, Millennial, etc., and comparing each groups DMV statistics for specific types of crashes would prove an unrealistic task for an undergraduate course. So in three days we switched gears and gathered research and sources to interview for the following story that we successfully submitted on deadline.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Isaac Kim was around 10 years old the day it seemed his family had finally run dry California\u2019s water supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy mom was showering, and then all of a sudden the water shut off,\u201d said Kim, a junior engineering physics major at Biola University who\u2019s lived in Norwalk for 21 years now. \u201cWe were like, \u2018Oh my gosh, this is the beginning of a drought; it\u2019s actually happening!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He remembers he got a water pitcher to help his mom finish the shower as he looked away. This was around 2013, in the second year of California\u2019s driest five-year drought period according to a Science Direct Journal article<\/a> from 2019. Kim said his parents and elementary school teachers urged shorter showers, and his family even let their grass go brown for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut it turns out not to have been because of the drought at all; it was because we were renovating our house, and then one of the construction workers shut off the water,\u201d Kim said. \u201cAll that to say, thinking about the drought was a part of my childhood for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although his experience didn\u2019t literally drain California\u2019s water reserves at the time, it illustrates the caution California has maintained since drought periods even before the 2012-2016 drought, with water agencies across the state encouraging residents to flush toilets less frequently with slogans like \u201cIf it\u2019s yellow, let it mellow; if it\u2019s brown, flush it down,\u201d and normalizing brown lawns of grass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a data analysis of the average snow water equivalent collected in March since 2012, according to the California Department of Water Resources\u2019 data site<\/a>, 2023 marked an extremely wet year to combat the extremely dry years of 2020-2022. This year has further contributed to a beneficial increase in wet seasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the midst of an especially rainy and wet season in California, periods of extreme drought and water conservation may seem like days of the past. An LAist article<\/a> from March 2, 2023, even acknowledged that California was \u201ctechnically\u201d out of its drought by that time. And according to the California Department of Water Resources on April 2<\/a>, California\u2019s average snow measurements are in good shape for the second straight season since 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So is the drought really over?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Matched with California\u2019s record of excessive heat in the past 10 years, drought naturally correlated with records of excessive heat events, which the National Centers for Environmental Information records<\/a> as temperature over 90 degrees for at least two to three days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Although it may seem like the drought has been \u201csolved\u201d by rain for the past two years, even a visualization of the past 10 years displays California\u2019s fluctuating pattern of wet and rainy, then dry and arid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Stanford University article from January 2023<\/a> points to climate change as the cause of what they call this phenomenon\u2014\u201cwhiplash weather\u201d\u2014and they expect even more extreme seasons of rain followed by extreme seasons of drought in California\u2019s near future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGlobal climate change is going to make California\u2019s climatic seasons more polarized,\u201d said Carol Jin, a junior engineering physics major at Biola like Kim, but with an interest in environmental engineering. \u201cOur rainy seasons will be more severe, heavier, longer, whereas our drought seasons\u2014when we do get our drought seasons\u2014will be longer and harsher as well. That\u2019s going to be what our future looks like, going forward, and I guess we\u2019re already experiencing a little bit of that because we\u2019re seeing the rainier side of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such a view on climate change is one Alicia Dewey, Ph.D., is slow to accept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really not climate change,\u201d said Dewey, a history professor at Biola University who has researched the Dust Bowl and similar Texas drought issues. \u201cA lot of these charts and temperatures completely leave out the 30\u2019s\u2014the worst time within the last century in terms of drought and high temperatures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She acknowledged that humans contributed to the earth\u2019s increasing temperature, but encouraged Californians to be wary of calling such weather patterns \u201cextreme\u201d and a \u201ccrisis,\u201d instead advocating for adaptation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to pay attention to adaptation,\u201d Dewey said. \u201cI\u2019m not saying it was wrong to build a big city here; they\u2019re not willing to build the infrastructure to support [California\u2019s population today], since the water that you could\u2019ve had in a reservoir has flooded out into the ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Jin and Dewey may disagree on the explicit reasons to explain California\u2019s weather, they both agree that modernizing infrastructure and active water awareness are necessary elements for effective conservation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jin mentioned Biola\u2019s recent rain-related flooding because of an unequipped drainage system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo accommodate for those upcoming predicted changes, I think it’s super important for Southern California to modernize their urban infrastructure to be able to store more rainwater, because before there was a perception that we didn’t really need to build our infrastructure with that in mind,\u201d she said. \u201cModernizing our infrastructure with rainfall in mind will both prevent future droughts if we store more rainwater, and it’ll also help us stay afloat when the rains actually do come because I don’t know if you remember two months ago [in] February, like literal streets were flooded.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, modernized infrastructure, financing and climate change awareness still remain, according to an April 10<\/a> Los Angeles Times<\/em> article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Akiela Moses from the California Department of Water, the state\u2019s current and upcoming projects include infrastructure modernization, expanding storage capacity and capturing as much groundwater as possible in Water Plan Update 2023<\/a> and California\u2019s Water Supply Strategy<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are working on modernizing existing infrastructure to improve water supply and water quality, with the goal of expanding water supplies by 1.6 million acre-feet in addition to 3 million acre-feet of new storage,\u201d Moses said. \u201cIn 2023, more than 1.2 million acre-feet of groundwater recharge was permitted by state agencies, with nearly 400,000 acre-feet of flood water recharged using the Executive Orders<\/a> issued by Governor Newsom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She encouraged Californians to \u201c[make] water conservation a way of life,\u201d and continue good conservation habits in and out of rainy seasons, from landscaping to household leaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Kim, that means keeping his showers short\u2014usually one to two minutes long, and maybe five minutes maximum\u2014regardless of how much rain California received that season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like wasting water,\u201d he said. \u201cAfter going to missions, they had us train to take very short showers, so I just got used to it. The longest showers I take now are five minutes max.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JOUR 305 Data Reporting & Visualization required me and my partner scour raw government data records to find a story. Almost two weeks before deadline, we realized our initial project comparing data across generations like Gen Z, Millennial, etc., and comparing each groups DMV statistics for specific types of crashes would prove an unrealistic task […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/djam.biola.edu\/hopel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/djam.biola.edu\/hopel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/djam.biola.edu\/hopel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djam.biola.edu\/hopel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djam.biola.edu\/hopel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/djam.biola.edu\/hopel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464,"href":"https:\/\/djam.biola.edu\/hopel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions\/464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/djam.biola.edu\/hopel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djam.biola.edu\/hopel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djam.biola.edu\/hopel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}