Western water crisis is really just a great agricultural migration from the east to the west (homes)

[Phil P]

No doubt the current water crisis going on the the American west is worsened by a drought condition, but the root of the water crisis is over using the supply of water available. People like to blame retirees moving in and putting up homes on the golf course, but the vast majority of water use in every western state is for agriculture.

Now the US has had roughly similar amounts of cropland acreage from 1920 to today, all while the population tripled (which says something about productivity gains). But where that acreage resides has changed pretty dramatically from 1920 till now, as can be seen here: https://stacker.com/stories/3989/how...last-100-years.

The general take away is that by and large the eastern US, particularly east of the Appalachians, has shed a LOT of farm acreage while arid western states (not necessarily the PNW) have picked it up.

The water crisis sucks and it's clear we are using the maximum right now that we can without letting farms dry up. But I think the positive shadow side to this story is rarely reflected on - the vast increase in the amount of rewilded and reforested land that exists in the eastern US. Can you imagine how ugly Georgia would be if it hadn't have had 60% of its farmed acreage converted back? North Carolina would look like Indiana with some bigger mountains on one end. This land, especially areas like the Piedmont, have a pretty big amount of biodiversity and there would have been a lot more extinction by today had this shift not happened. Mature longleaf pine forests are some of the most productive spaces ecologically, and in 40 years we're gonna have a whole lot more of those across the entire American south.

Many people retort to the water crisis and say that people were never meant to live in arid environments like that. Really? A lot of human habitation over time has been where we take barren land and irrigate it. Perhaps that is indeed the more natural setup than bulldozing down dense forests for farms and subdivisions? Maybe it's better to take water from a limited source than it is to clear a space that has much more ecological potential from the natural rainfall available?

[arr430]

I remember in the 60s, when the government paid farmers to take land out of production and let fields lie fallow. So Arizona owners diverted the Coloraddo to irrigate desert, convert it into cropland, then leave it alone to collect the cash.

[Landolakes90]

I wonder how cost prohibitive it would be to build massive year round growing facilities to the Great Lakes? Michigan has access to more fresh water than just about any place on earth. Also massive farming there so it may not require the clearing of more forests.