Forget gas shortages - water is going to hurt the US heartland

Drought-prone regions are in fact prone to drought.

In the late 1700s the middle section of our continent was known on maps as the 'Great Desert'. During the 'Manifest Destiny' era there was a theory called "the rain follows the plow". It was 'proven' that tilling barren soil will change climate and will draw precipitation. As Homesteaders flooded into that desert it's name was changed to the 'Great Plains'.

In reality drought has plagued the region for as long as recorded history can document. Both seasonal droughts and cyclic droughts. Both sets of my grandparents lost their farms during the Dust Bowl.

Drought in a drought-prone region is not a new phenomenon.

Man has built great cities, in a region where there is no reliable water source.

 

Except the Ogalalla aguafer! That has lots of water...er did have! When you mine water, don't be surprised when it runs out!

Icarus

 

Do they need to switch to Centipede grass? That's what we had at our Louisiana house...don't recall ever watering, but we did not have a drought either.

I agree our energy policy is not really based on sustainability as much as on creating jobs, and avoiding use of petroleum at all costs. There is *no* fundamental need for ethanol or MTBE in gasoline other than to avoid using gasoline itself. When MTBE was banned there was a huge lost oppotunity to convert MTBE plants to iso-octane plants (that's the 100 octane test fuel). Instead we went the all-out corn ethanol route due to politics. That consumes fossil fuels, using tons of water, uses phosporous - which is in short supply and unlike water has no way to regenerate Phosporous ore - not to mention herbicides/perticides I assume.

 

Tree-ring data has shown evidence of the recent history of precipitation in the 'Great Plains' region. The 14th and 16th centuries had bad droughts in that region.

Then there was drought in 1721, 1736, and again from 1771 to 1773.

It was dry from 1816 to 1844, the worst of that period was 1820. Then again from 1855 to 1865. Then another drought went from 1870 to 1877 [the worst year was 1872, which brought with it a major swarm of Rocky Mountain Locusts]. Then 1890 to 1896 drought was the first to be recorded by rain gauges.

 

From that it seems we definitely benefit from irrigation.

Corn is a thirsty plant, it makes sense to plant less of it Switch grass seems more natural in the region.