- [Narrator] Signs of the drought
in the Western United States are everywhere.
From the dry riverbeds
to the depleted reservoirs, canals and fallow fields.
And Western farmers are hurting.
- This is a fallow field
where there's not enough water to plant.
No water, so that's the rice dying.
- [Narrator] Right now, the US is in year two of a drought
that encompasses almost the entirety of the American west.
And though dry periods are part
of a natural water cycle in the west,
climate scientists are noticing changes
that are making it easier
for the region to fall into drought.
This is causing farmers to go to greater lengths
to access their water, which can create a ripple effect
in neighboring rural communities.
Water moves in the west in the same cycle
as the rest of the world.
First, precipitation falls,
then the water seeps into the ground
or becomes runoff that flows into rivers and streams.
It's either sapped up by plants or humans
or evaporates back into the atmosphere,
starting the process all over again.
But what's unique about the west is where
and how the precipitation falls.
Experts say it often comes in the form of a few big storms,
traversing the region,
and falling a snow in the mountains,
like in the Rockies or California, Sierra and Nevada.
The snow pack it creates serves as a natural storage,
saving water until the spring and summer when it thaws,
feeding the rivers and reservoirs
that serve lower lying farms and cities.
- Some of these extreme rain events can really make
or break drought conditions for a given winter.
- [Narrator] Climate scientist Samantha Stevenson says,
some causes of a drought can occur
at two points in the water cycle.
The first is more precipitation
falling as rain instead of snow.
- If you're getting the same amount of moisture
added to the land surface,
but more of that is ending up falling as rain,
then it's going to just run off into the river very quickly
and be further downstream, or maybe even out of the area
where you need it by the time summer comes around.
- [Narrator] Second reason is increased evaporation
from the land, rivers and lakes,
making everything very dry.
- We've all seen this during dry summers, right?
You water your lawn and then it disappears
within a couple of hours.
And it's the same thing, but on a larger scale.
- [Narrator] Experts say higher temperatures
have led to both occurring this year,
resulting in the current drought
being so severe and so widespread.
They cautioned him might be a sign
of similar droughts to come.
- What we can say is that we expect
that these temperature driven trends
are going to cause droughts to in general, become larger.
- [Narrator] Right now, the drought
is very large and very dry.
Snow pack levels in California
have dropped to 4% of normal this year.
And many of the west's largest reservoirs
have sunk below half of their capacities.
The effects are most acutely felt by farms
and nearby communities, where over 90%
of the water goes in many Western states.
California accounts for a quarter
of all food grown in the US,
including 40% of fruits, nuts and other table foods.
That's because they can thrive
in the region semi-arid climate.
The water is put to good use says Doug Parker,
the director of the California Institute
for water resources.
- So the dry season is sort of a curse
because we don't have water during that season,
but then again, it's a blessing
'cause it's the only way we could actually grow
some of those kinds of crops.
- [Narrator] Jamie Traynham and her husband
manage over 1200 acres of farmland in Colusa County.
- My husband and I have been farming for 27 years.
We farm about 1100 acres of rice,
right around 200 acres of walnuts, 60 acres of row crop.
And then we run 250 head of mother cows.
We ended up having to follow right around 500 acres of rice.
We didn't have much choice, there's nothing,
it's just dirt and some, you know, dry weeds basically.
If there's not water for it, you can't grow it.
- [Narrator] Most of Traynham's water
originates 120 miles away in Shasta lake,
and makes its way to her farm
via a series of canals and pipelines.
But the US Bureau of Reclamation,
which manages much of this infrastructure
and provides one fifth of Western farmers
with your irrigation water has cut the water allocations
for many to zero this year.
- When there's less water, you spend 10 times more
of your own time dealing with paperwork,
calculations and managing what little water you have.
It's very, very stressful and nerve wracking
because it's like putting a puzzle together
when you don't even know what all the pieces are.
- [Narrator] During the 2014, 2015 drought,
total farm related losses in California
totaled $5 billion and 20,000 farm hands lost their jobs.
- Imagine if you have to basically cut back
20% of your acreage, that's like taking a 20% pay cut
to somebody who works in a regular job, right?
So it is painful for those farmers.
- [Narrator] Experts say the region's agricultural sector
is resilient and it's too early to tell
what effects this drought will have
on food supplies and prices.
With limited options, Traynham has turned
to pumping groundwater to make ends meet.
- Right now in the rice that we do have,
we really don't have any other source of water
but our well water.
If you don't have a well,
and you're relying on surface water,
years like this prove the point
that you better rethink what you're planting
or you better have a backup plan.
- [Narrator] But groundwater
isn't as easily replenished as surface water.
And there are concerns that California farms
run the risk of overdrawing, causing wells to run dry.
- We don't have a good system
where we regulate that groundwater.
And so we tend to have a system where we draw more
and we put back less, and as anybody knows, you know,
you can't continually take money out of your bank account
if you never put something back in.
- [Narrator] Nearby rural communities also rely
on this groundwater for their homes.
During the last drought, hundreds of California households,
many in the central valley reported water shortages.
There are other consequences as well.
Over pumping has been linked to increased levels
of arsenic in parts of the central Valley's groundwater.
It also can cause changes in land subsidence,
meaning the ground can sink,
potentially roads, homes and bridges.
- I'm concerned about the use of the well water
just like everybody is, nobody wants their well to go dry.
Nobody wants subsidence.
We suffer and feel it first,
but that doesn't make it any less of a struggle
to somebody living in a city
where their well goes dry and they have no drinking water.
- [Narrator] During the last drought,
California passed laws to better manage groundwater usage.
- We're in the early parts of figuring out
how to do that management of it.
We really don't have all those mechanisms in place yet.
So I expect us to overuse groundwater
by quite a bit during this drought.
- [Narrator] Experts expect the drought will continue
to worsen into the summer and early fall,
as temperatures rise even more,
which could cause a tighter squeeze on resources
and tougher decisions to be made
about how the west gets its water.
(gentle music)