- Author: Mark Lundy
A report released in July from the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences summarized the impacts of the 2014 drought:
“The 2014 drought will result in a 6.6 million acre-foot reduction in surface water available to agriculture. This loss of surface water will be partially replaced by increasing groundwater pumping by 5.1 million acre-feet. The resulting net water shortage of 1.5 million acre-feet will cause losses of $810 million in crop revenue and $203 million in dairy and other livestock value, plus additional groundwater pumping costs of $454 million. These direct costs to agriculture total $1.5 billion. The total statewide economic cost of the 2014 drought is $2.2 billion, with a total loss of 17,100 seasonal and part-time jobs.”
A summary of the report is available here:
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=10978
and the full report can be found here:
https://watershed.ucdavis.edu/files/biblio/DroughtReport_23July2014_0.pdf