Abstract
No one expected water grabs like those popping up across sub-Saharan Africa to suddenly appear in the western United States. But in March 2014, Saudi Arabia’s giant food company, Almarai, bought about 15 square miles (40 square kilometers) of farmland 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of Phoenix, Arizona. With that $47.5 million purchase came 15 wells capable of pumping water from deep underground. The Saudis had set up shop in Arizona, perfectly legally, to use the arid western state’s precious groundwater to grow alfalfa hay. Their intent was not to feed US livestock, but to ship the hay back home to the Middle East to feed Saudi dairy cows.
And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years.
—John Steinbeck
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Notes
- 1.
Arab News, “Almarai Acquires Huge Farmland in Arizona”; National Public Radio, “Saudi Hay Farm in Arizona Tests State’s Supply of Groundwater.”
- 2.
Postel, Pillar of Sand, 78.
- 3.
Giordano, “Global Groundwater? Issues and Solutions”; United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Aquastat Database.
- 4.
Saudi land purchases from Rulli et al., “Global Land and Water Grabbing.”
- 5.
Ninety-six percent is from Shiklomanov, World Water Resources: An Appraisal for the 21st Century.
- 6.
India from Postel, Pillar of Sand, 56–57; 40 percent from FAO, The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture—Managing Systems at Risk, 38.
- 7.
Morgan, Water and the Land: A History of American Irrigation.
- 8.
Stanton et al., Selected Approaches to Estimate Water-Budget Components of the High Plains, 1940 through 1949 and 2000 through 2009.
- 9.
US Geological Survey, “Irrigation Causing Declines in the High Plains Aquifer.”
- 10.
Postel, Pillar of Sand, 80.
- 11.
Wada et al., “Global Depletion of Groundwater Resources”; Konikow, “Contribution of Global Groundwater Depletion since 1900 to Sea-Level Rise.”
- 12.
Castle et al., “Groundwater Depletion during Drought Threatens Future Water Security of the Colorado River Basin.”
- 13.
University of California–Irvine, “Parched West Is Using Up Underground Water, UCI, NASA Find.”
- 14.
Rodell et al., “Satellite-Based Estimates of Groundwater Depletion in India”; Famiglietti et al., “Satellites Measure Recent Rates of Groundwater Depletion in California’s Central Valley.”
- 15.
Famiglietti, “The Global Groundwater Crisis.”
- 16.
Galbraith, “Texas Farmers Battle Ogallala Pumping Limits.”
- 17.
Postel, “That Sinking Feeling about Groundwater in Texas”; meters and enforcement policies from Carmon McCain, Information and Education Supervisor, High Plains Underground Water Conservation District, Lubbock, Texas, email communication with author, April 5, 2016.
- 18.
Rogers, Historic Reclamation Projects; National Groundwater Association, “Managed Aquifer Recharge: A Water Supply Management Tool.”
- 19.
Rate of subsidence from Boxall, “Overpumping of Central Valley Groundwater Creating a Crisis, Experts Say.”
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
Garone, The Fall and Rise of the Wetlands of California’s Great Central Valley.
- 22.
Nick Blom, almond farmer, author interview, Modesto, California, March 23, 2016.
- 23.
Kerlin, “Flooding Farms in the Rain to Restore Groundwater”; 2016 monitoring results from Helen Dahlke, assistant professor of integrated hydrological sciences, University of California–Davis, email communication with author, Davis, California, December 8, 2016.
- 24.
Helen Dahlke, assistant professor of integrated hydrological sciences, University of California–Davis, author interview, Davis, California, March 21, 2016.
- 25.
Two million figure from Public Policy Institute of California, “California’s Water”; additional pumping from Howitt et al., “Economic Analysis of the 2015 Drought for California Agriculture.”
- 26.
Gabriele Ludwig, director, Sustainability and Environmental Affairs, Almond Board of California, author interview conducted at Nick Blom’s farm, Modesto, California, March 23, 2016.
- 27.
Andrew Fahlund, senior program officer, California Water Foundation, Sacramento, California, author interview (by phone), March 18, 2016.
- 28.
Kate Williams, consultant and former program manager with the California Water Foundation, author interview, Sacramento, California, March 22, 2016.
- 29.
RMC Water and Environment, “Creating an Opportunity: Groundwater Recharge through Winter Flooding of Agricultural Land in the San Joaquin Valley.”
- 30.
Daniel Mountjoy, director of resource stewardship, Sustainable Conservation, author interview, Modesto, California, March 23, 2016; cost of dam from Natural Resources Defense Council, “Regional Water Supply Solutions Generally More Cost-Effective than New Dams and Reservoirs.”
- 31.
Mountjoy, author interview.
- 32.
Madera Irrigation District, “Madera Irrigation District Continues Water Deliveries and Massive Recharge Effort”; Rodriguez, “Farmers and Water Districts Hope Storm Runoff Can Help Replenish Underground Supplies.”
- 33.
Almond Board of California, “Potential for Groundwater Recharge in Almonds”; Disclaimer: WhiteWave is a sponsor of Change the Course, the national restoration initiative I helped launch.
- 34.
Groundwater extraction figures from National Groundwater Association, “Facts about Global Groundwater Usage”; number of wells from Shah, “Groundwater Governance and Irrigated Agriculture.”
- 35.
Shah, Taming the Anarchy: Groundwater Governance in South Asia, 2.
- 36.
Suutari and Marten, “Water Warriors: Rainwater Harvesting to Replenish Underground Water (Rajasthan, India).
- 37.
Agarwal and Narain, eds., Dying Wisdom: Rise, Fall and Potential of India’s Traditional Water Harvesting Systems, 344; Suutari and Marten, “Water Warriors.”
- 38.
Ten thousand johads from Tarun Bharat Sangh at tarunbharatsangh.in, viewed March 9, 2016; one thousand villages from Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), “Rajendra Singh—the Water Man of India Wins 2015 Stockholm Water Prize.”
- 39.
SIWI, Rajendra Singh interview. (Note: I reordered the sentences in this quote, but this did not alter the meaning.)
- 40.
World Bank Group, “Basin Based Approach for Groundwater Management: Neemrana, District of Alwar, Rajasthan, India.”
- 41.
Postel, “Solar Electricity Buybacks May Reduce Groundwater Depletion in India.”
- 42.
Ibid.; Gujarat only state from Shah, “India’s Irrigation Challenge: Is PMKSY Equal to It?”
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© 2017 Sandra Postel
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Postel, S. (2017). Bank It for a Dry Day. In: Replenish. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-791-9_5
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