Citrus farmers in California are building private reservoirs on their own land hoping to protect their orchards against the loss of water in future droughts when water is tightly controlled and water users are pitted against each other.
The reservoirs, which are more like giant farm ponds than true reservoirs which rely on a dammed stream, are filled by pumping from groundwater. The farmers also hope that the El Nino that is currently in place will bring significant rains to California next winter, helping to fill up the reservoirs. From there, the farmers deliver the water to their trees using high precision irrigation. Vegetable farmers have the option of fallowing their fields in droughts, but trees grow over many years and the farmers want to keep their orchards alive for future production when the drought eases.
You can read about this at Yahoo News at https://news.yahoo.com/california-citrus-farmers-pull-trees-dig-reservoirs-survive-130944199.html.
