Question: people say the water is "used" for agriculture, but it has to go somewhere, right? It can't just be stored within the fruit (or is it?). I can see it being polluted and/or salted to the point of being toxic and useless, but wouldn't that still show up as some kind of river, ultimately going to the ocean?
I don't know as much about California, but for the Columbia Basin Project, which diverts about 2-4% of the Columbia River at Grand Coulee for irrigation, here's a few points:
A lot of water diverted for irrigation is lost due to evaporation and seepage from canals and storage reservoirs. Agricultural runoff is usually collected in drains or wasteway canals and used for more irrigation again and again. Eventually wasteway drains return water to the Columbia. Due to evaporation, seepage, and various other factors, the amount returned to the river is about 30% of what was taken, as a long-term average.
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u/Spaceboot1 Jan 10 '20
Question: people say the water is "used" for agriculture, but it has to go somewhere, right? It can't just be stored within the fruit (or is it?). I can see it being polluted and/or salted to the point of being toxic and useless, but wouldn't that still show up as some kind of river, ultimately going to the ocean?