Four years of drought in California and the prospect of even longer droughts in the future has Californians seeking for insight into how to deal with these longer droughts. Australia has survived their “Big Dry”, which lasted from the 1990s through 2012, and are a natural source of information on how to cope with long-term water deficits.
Yahoo News had two stories this week on the severity of Australia’s drought and what they did to deal with the extreme lack of water in the region. The first article highlights differences in the way water is regulated between Australia and California and compares how those differences have affected each region’s responses in terms of agriculture and water use.
A second article in Yahoo News describes how many of the coping strategies used by Australians during the drought were low-tech solutions like conservation and collecting rainwater rather than massive infrastructure like desalinization plants.
