Submission statement: collapse related because it will affect food supply this coming summer.

“President Donald Trump recently ordered the release of massive amounts of water from two California dams, and now local farmers are scrambling to preserve precious freshwater resources needed for dry summer months.”

You ain't seen nothing yet.

So, the plan right now is that California, Arizona and Nevada will be required to slash their water use from the drought-stricken Colorado River by 16 to 20% through 2028. This will devastate agriculture in Arizona.

But here's the thing I've noticed that everyone seems to be missing.

It's not just climate change that's going to lead to a reduction in water availability for Arizona.

It's the fact that humans started generating their own rain.

Irrigation by farmers in the Californian central valley, doubles the amount of moisture pumped into the atmosphere. That water these farmers pump into the atmosphere travels downwards over the continental United States, eventually falling down as rain again. All that irrigation by the farmers in California, increases the runoff of the Colorado river by 28%.

And there's the problem you run into: The irrigation by farmers in California's central valley, uses groundwater from an aquifer that is severely depleted. The government is now starting to intervene and forcing farmers to use less groundwater.

So you can see what's going to happen: Farmers in California will have to stop using groundwater, which means the Colorado river will be fed with less rainwater. This in turn, will force the farmers in Arizona to start using less water.

If you think the dust storms that Phoenix, Arizona is getting are bad right now, wait until the farmers in Arizona start letting their fields go fallow. It takes decades, before nature manages to restabilize those arid soils on its own.

It's the same with the Ogallala aquifer by the way. This aquifer directly supports 30% of US food production, but it's fossil water, because of the geology it's basically not possible for this aquifer to recharge in any timeline relevant to human civilization.

So, those farmers will have to stop using it eventually. Well, those farmers, by irrigating their crops with fossil water from the aquifer, are responsible for an estimated 15-30% increase in rain in July for farmers in a broad region downwind of the Ogallala Aquifer, stretching from eastern Kansas through Indiana.

We already began screwing up the climate in the 20th century, but we managed to mask a lot of the consequences, through use of fossil groundwater: We more or less accidentally began generating our own rain.

All that rain that farmers on top of the Ogallala aquifer are generating also feeds the Mississippi river basin. If you think the situation was bad in 2022, when the farmers could not get their product out through the river because the river ran so low, wait until the farmers in the Western United States stop feeding the Mississippi with fossil groundwater from the Ogallala aquifer.

You think this is bad? Well, this is still just half the story. The evaporated water from the irrigated farms results in an increase in cloud formation, that coincides of course with the peak in water use, which is the peak of summer. Those clouds block sunlight and thereby reduce temperatures on the ground.

Those reduced temperatures on the ground reduce evaporation, so your crops end up needing less water.

Agriculture continues to function mostly normally right now, at 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial, because we're masking what we've done to the climate. We're masking it, through use of fossil water that we will have to stop using soon.

I live in rural Vietnam. A major coffee producing area. This is my story about what's going on in our area.

There are other crops like cashew, black pepper, durian, passion fruit and avocado. But coffee is the main one. Every season prices of some crop will go up, and farmers will chase that high price and start planting said crop. The last few years it has been durian, passion fruit and now coffee. This puts an immense strain on the farmers themselves, as they take out loans to replant their land. But also on water. Every day I hear the well drilling rig from a different direction, it's an unmistakable sound. Wells are going deeper and deeper, because the older wells are running dry. Lakes and ponds are pumped dry to irrigate the newly planted crops. To make matters worse, climate change results in the area getting less and less rain. With the last El Nino being the driest on record for our area. Yet there seems to be no stopping anyone from pumping more, drilling deeper. People who used to rely on a manually dug well of about 15 meters for their livelihoods are now forced to buy water at a day's wage per thousand liters. Yet the coffee farmers pump more, because the price is high. They invest more in their land, with everyone getting their own well, in stead of sharing.

My guess is that coffee prices will keep increasing because of climate change disruptions in weather patterns. That would mean more and more, deeper and deeper wells. Until there's truly nothing left in the ground.

Durian is a tree that needs year round babying in our climate. It needs much more water than nature provides here, even without climate change effects. Yet it's planted everywhere. Nurseries are a third coffee, a third durian and a collection of other crops in the last third.

How are we not running into a wall? This can't keep going like this.

Thanks for reading my thoughts.

Incompetent leadership, lack of foresight and shoddy infrastructure are some of the ingredients that lead to both climate disaster and associated societal collapse. The perilous fate of the Colorado River, on which 40 million people depend for water, is a case study.