https://www.knpr.org/show/knprs-state-of-nevada/2024-08-29/w...
For instance where I live east of the Cascades, in the dry part of Oregon, only like 10% of the water used goes to the cities.
https://www.centraloregonlandwatch.org/update/2021/5/5/droug...
Street trees are hugely beneficial and if you want to cut something (ha ha), you want to look at things like lawns or golf courses.
Trees in cities are not about reducing water usage by any significant amount. They are still lovely, though.
I found this quote in this 2016 PDF from the EPA:
https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2017-02/documents/ws...
Trees were the first thing planted. Fast growing trees, placed to cast shade on the house.
After a few years, those dirt lots transformed into some very nice properties where sitting outside in the shade with the desert zephyrs rustling the leaves provide a very nice, idyllic place for conservation or reading.
I agree growing things in the desert may be inefficient, but speaking for the CO river, that problem is in California and Arizona.
https://www.snwa.com/water-resources/where-water-comes-from/...
However, large scale commercial agriculture in desert areas without significant ground water - that's a new thing, and it's a problem.
(or were victims of non-anthropogenic desertification)
*note: the same process going on currently also via multiple means :(
While human activities undoubtedly contributed to desertification, the Levant is geographically and climactically a desert. The amount of surface water that is available may be directly influenced by human behavior, but I do not think that human behavior changed the fundamentals of the landscape.
Am I wrong?
On the other hand for the Fertile Crescent: the overuse of irrigation and water steering with shorter term agricultural goals with only direct affects in mind. The area was largely marshlands in the past.
And also mismanagement of forests lead to desertification of formerly fertile areas on the timescale before the current large scale climate change era began. This was before humanity could have as big possible part in the forming of climate as currently.
We identified why north Africa greened approximately every 21,000 years over the past eight million years. It was caused by changes in the Earth’s orbital precession - the slight wobbling of the planet while rotating. This moves the Northern Hemisphere closer to the sun during the summer months.
*What Really Turned the Sahara Desert From a Green Oasis Into a Wasteland?* - 10,000 years ago, this iconic desert was unrecognizable. A new hypothesis suggests that humans may have tipped the balance
While I personally veer toward the more recent slight orbital variation cause, neither account factors much in the current AGW debate .. cyclic changes in local regions of the planet are a distinct issue from a steady rise in global atmospheric insulation properties.
Desalination that runs off of Solar panels makes it pretty viable for places like Dubai to exist. The cheap solar energy from the Desert, makes it attractive for future data centers to be placed there. Also, Ancient Egypt had slaves. A lot of the modern middle eastern states rely on cheap labour from India and Afghanistan. And Oil money ...
https://www.cleanwaterteam.com/about-us/who-we-are
> [Las Vegas] used 38 billion gallons less water in 2024 than in 2002, despite a population increase of approximately 829,000 residents during that time. This represents a 55 percent decline in the community’s per capita water use since 2002.
(also, I don't think the Central Valley is actually a desert?)
^ the rub ^
Since the point of the trees has been discovered to be just shade and not evaporative cooling, they just need to figure a way to reorient their panels?
[0] only sunlight needed
https://www.thebrighterside.news/post/mits-high-tech-hydroge...
OK, let's go full mad world: a vast web of PV for power. Is there a handy massive water resource deep underground? If not then moisture in the air will need redeploying. Tall towers and probably gobs of power are indicated for that.
There was.
We've been sucking them dry for a century or more, everywhere they exist.
If people were really serious about living in deserts in a sustainable way, they can't expect to have decorative greenery or classic architecture. A society as advanced as ours should be able to make compromises that allow modern comforts while adapting so well to their environment that the cities would look almost alien.
The architecture has existed for centuries, maybe even millenia. Some of us already live that way.
The irony is that the key thing - large thermal mass - has now become the province of only those with lots of money, or those with no money. Everyone in the middle is stuck with silly construction options for a desert climate.