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Robotics Earth Technology

Drought and Desertification: How Robots Might Help 124

Posted by timothy from the droids-you're-looking-for dept.
Hallie Siegel writes Groundwater levels in California's Central Valley are down to historic lows and reservoirs have been depleted following four consecutive years of severe drought in the state. California is set to introduce water rationing in the coming weeks, and though the new rationing rules will focus on urban areas and not farms for the time being, they serve as a warning bell to farmers who will inevitably need to adapt to the effects of climate change on food production. John Payne argues that long term solutions are needed to help make agriculture drought resistant and looks at some of the ways that robotics might help.
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Drought and Desertification: How Robots Might Help More

Drought and Desertification: How Robots Might Help

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  • Why waste time on robots? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    When the state finally sobers up and starts cutting the centennial water rights that are strangling the state, the farmers will have to move. Most likely toward the melty and fertile old permafrost. Spending time and effort to pretend that technology will do anything but drag the desertification (of a desert) out, is compiling waste.

  • Yes! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    killer robots will be the cause of and the solution to all the draught's problems

  • pacific northwest (Score:4, Insightful)

    by farble1670 ( 803356 ) on Friday April 17, 2015 @07:02PM (#49497693)

    create a pipeline from the PNW down to southern CA. done.

    of course it'd be expensive, but this is either an emergency, or it isn't. at least there aren't (as many) environmental concerns as there are for oil pipelines. if it leaks / breaks you get a ... water spill?

    • if it leaks / breaks you get a ... water spill?

      It would be disaster! Next thing you know, edible plants will proliferate!

    • Buzz off California, don't fuck with Cascadia. You've stolen enough other people's water already.

      • Arizona called California, it wants it's share of Colorado river water back

        • What AZ, CA, and the whole region need is to slow down the rainwater and help it to soak into the soil. To do this, you need earthworks such as swales [permaculturenews.org] and dams (specifically gabions [wikipedia.org] for the arid southwestern desert areas). Those arroyos and canyons in Arizona may be great ATV playgrounds for 11 months of the year, but for a few days they become raging torrents. And as it stands now, ALL of that water simply runs off down to the ocean. But it wouldn't be hard to save that water, and use it to re-green the en

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Alomex ( 148003 )

            No water from Arizona reaches the ocean. It is all collected before it gets anywhere close to the shore.

          • Oregonian here.

            What we NEED is colder winters. We save our winter snow in the snow pack on the mountains(By We, I mean it happens naturally). That melts in the summer, providing ample water for our rivers and hence for us. Our winters are getting warmer (Statistically speaking, everyone's winters are getting warmer) for some reason on a trend line, almost like a hockey stick, if only we knew what was going on....

            Just in case anyone reading is stupid and doesn't get it, it's global warming, which I'll ca

            • What we NEED is colder winters.

              What you need is more precipitation. Colder winters might help that happen, but they are not what you need, per se. What you need is lower global temperatures, especially in ocean waters, so that your regional climate is no longer fucked up by climate change.

              I understand that the water-harvesting scenario in my previous post depends on rainfall -- of which California has seen practically none for several years in a row. But that's no reason not to start investing in the kind of infrastructure that could hel

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by itzly ( 3699663 )

                Fixing climate change is going to take some time and effort, on several fronts simultaneously

                We're not going to fix (i.e. go back to early 20th century) it. For the next century it's only getting worse. At best we can try to slow down the rate at which it's getting worse.

      • We'll sell them a few bottles of Vernors [wikipedia.org] to help out.

      • Buzz off California, don't fuck with Cascadia. You've stolen enough other people's water already.

        Of all the posts to be modded as troll! This should be +5 insighful. California as a state, seems to believe that the water from places that actually get sufficient rainfall belongs to them.

        And what do they do with it? Plant water intensive crops like almonds.

        And considering that they have already run the Colorado river dry, it is logical that they will be willing and able to do the same for Pacific northwest water.

        Troll? Hell no, it's just the reaction you are going to get when you try to take their

    • My first thought was "Newp! Its dry enough here in the summer!" Then I remembered that to the rest of the world PNW == West of mountains.. Why eastern WA isn't its own state is beyond me.. No one on the east coast even knows we're over here... Until tax time anyhow..

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Cheaper to stop sending 50% of the flow of the sacramento river into the san francisco bay to save the snail darter.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by knightghost ( 861069 )

      50% of CA water goes to environmentalism (salmon, etc), 40% to farms (watering the desert), and 10% to city (gotta have fancy lawns).

      Putting everything on the table is a lot less expensive than some pork barrel pipeline. Or some fantasy silver bullet "science will save us!".

      • forcing the farms to be accountable for how they use water would go a long way to solving the problem

        Of course it is not free, so who's gonna pay 10% more for their produce?

    • Oh wow, a pipeline. Do you have any idea how much energy it takes to transfer water through a pipeline?
      Plenty of engineers do, and they built desalination plants instead.

      Pipelines are horrendously inefficient for transfer of fluids except when the alternative is manual batch shipping.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by itzly ( 3699663 )

        Pipelines are horrendously inefficient for transfer of fluids except when the alternative is manual batch shipping.

        Or when the pipes run down...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by delt0r ( 999393 )
        How much energy? about a little more than oil. No desalination is far more energy intensive. That is why there are things like aqueducts and long pipe lines already.

        The problem as i understand it, is a lack of fresh water in the first place. This implies desalination *and* pipe lines. Also expensive water.

    • create a pipeline from the PNW down to southern CA. done.

      Please describe specifically where this pipeline is going to run, and where the water will come from. This should be fun! The fact is that the PNW is experiencing water problems, too. Oregon won't be any help, for example.

    • create a pipeline from the PNW down to southern CA. done.

      of course it'd be expensive, but this is either an emergency, or it isn't. at least there aren't (as many) environmental concerns as there are for oil pipelines. if it leaks / breaks you get a ... water spill?

      Anyone think to ask the PNW if this was okay?

      http://green.blogs.nytimes.com... [nytimes.com]

      http://www.livescience.com/469... [livescience.com]

      Seeing what the southwestern states have done to the Colorado river, you might not find the Pacific Northwest all that cooperative with that plan.

    • create a pipeline from the PNW down to southern CA. done.

      Sorry, we're having our own drought up here. Snow pack was so bad this year that most of the ski parks never even opened. Drought conditions have already been called for about half the counties.

  • Such needless suffering for the sole benefit of the 'quarterly report' in the portfolio.

  • This reminds me of the Horizons ride at EPCOT ages ago. One of their three ecosystems to be tamed was a desert wasteland, and how advanced robots would mine/farm the land. These robots could detect rain, air pressure, and everything!

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]

  • Fix the current problems (Score:5, Informative)

    by tranquilidad ( 1994300 ) on Friday April 17, 2015 @07:09PM (#49497721)

    Perhaps, instead of robots, they should look at fixing their leaky pipes (Bay Area loses billions of gallons to leaky pipes [mercurynews.com]) or sending, so efficiently, most of their rainwater back into the ocean (How to fix California's drought problem [cnbc.com]) before they spend billions building desalination plants (Drinking the Pacific [surfermag.com]).

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by fustakrakich ( 1673220 )

      *sigh* The 'drought' is an economic/political issue.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by delt0r ( 999393 )
      There is also the fact that water is used very wastefully in general. Fairly small changes in farming practices etc can save large amounts of water, especially when irrigating what is effectively a desert.

  • These ARE the Droids that you are looking for! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Irate Engineer ( 2814313 ) on Friday April 17, 2015 @07:15PM (#49497739)
    You need some droids that understand the binary language of vaporators to keep the moisture farms in operation. Once you have that, the water problem is solved!

  • Maybe robots could build desalination plants?

    It''s pretty damn sure that humans never will; they'll plan them, and then shelve the plans, over and over. At least robots are single-minded enough to actually do the work.

    • Maybe robots could build desalination plants?
      It's pretty damn sure that humans never will ...

      We're well on our way to getting one built in Carlsbad [wikipedia.org], near San Diego. I hope there are more to follow.

      • Maybe robots could build desalination plants?
        It's pretty damn sure that humans never will ...

        We're well on our way to getting one built in Carlsbad [wikipedia.org], near San Diego. I hope there are more to follow.

        "It will produce 50 million gallons of water per day and will provide 7% of the potable water needs for the San Diego region."

        Cool. Now you only need to build another 14 of them to satisfy the water needs of the area...

    • We built one here. Sydney suffered a decade long drought and once it became apparent the reservoirs were at risk, the govt built invested $2B in a desalination plant. Just before it was completed the drought broke and the plant has never been used since. It costs taxpayers $500k/day to sit there and doing nothing.

  • Cloud seeding?

  • I recall reading California's almond production consumed 3 times the amount of water of Los Angleles. At some point something will have to change in agricultural production.
    • If the climate isn't ideal for growing almonds, maybe we should grow them somewhere else? Nah, that's a crazy thought.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by itzly ( 3699663 )

        The climate was ideal for growing almonds for a long time. Ripping the trees out at the first big drought could be a mistake. If the drought finally breaks the next year, your trees will be gone, and it will take 5 years before new trees are producing a good amount of fruit.

        • Correct me if I am wrong, but in drought context, trees are ideal to protect vegetable cultures on the ground. They retain soil and water and offer protection against direct sun exposure. This kind of technique as been used in Sahel.

          Hence you can keep your trees unproductive and start producing something else.

  • Maybe not farm there (Score:3)

    by CanadianMacFan ( 1900244 ) on Friday April 17, 2015 @08:03PM (#49497913)

    If your whole ability to farm in the region depends on bringing water from ever further away or draining the underground resources maybe it's a sign that you really haven't picked the best spot to build your farm.

  • don't try to irrigate a desert (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NostalgiaForInfinity ( 4001831 ) on Friday April 17, 2015 @08:29PM (#49498015)

    Much of California is a mix of desert, grassland, and chaparral in its natural state. It wouldn't require any water or irrigation. The reason California has an insatiable appetite for water is because people insist on farming there, often with thirsty crops; and farming happens in California because water is effectively heavily subsidized. The solution to California's water problems is simple: have California farmers pay market rates for water and stop subsidizing farmers.

    • I sincerely respect most of the views expressed on the subject over the last month or so. What I have not seen is any discussion on the fact that California grows a metric "Library of Congress" of shit in the central valley. If very much of that goes away, food prices will rise in California so food will be imported from the rest of the nation (40 million people and rising have to eat something) causing widespread price increases as the existing supply is spread thinner. Many express opinions framing thi

      • I sincerely respect most of the views expressed on the subject over the last month or so. What I have not seen is any discussion on the fact that California grows a metric "Library of Congress" of shit in the central valley.

        Why would it "go away"? It would simply be produced elsewhere, at whatever it actually costs, probably even cheaper (the same special interests that get cheap water also manage to keep prices high and imports restricted). Ideally, it might be imported from Central and South America, impr

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by delt0r ( 999393 )
      This could be said almost world wide to most farmers with different direct and effective subsidies. It is not going to happen. it is just politically untenable.

  • Getting robots to help with desertification is a lot easier if you have a flying time machine, and can go to the future to get said robot, then send the robot back 400 years ago to replant all the trees.

  • the cure is clear, and demonstrated (Score:3)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Friday April 17, 2015 @08:47PM (#49498085) Journal

    ...and almost never discussed: return to herd-based agriculture, to mimic the pre-human massive herds of herbivores that crossed the plains that are desertifying.

    http://www.ted.com/talks/allan... [ted.com]

    Watch it, and tell me you're not convinced.

    • He lost me at "We were once just as certain that the earth was flat". No we weren't, it's a well worn myth [wikipedia.org] that loses the speaker respect by quoting such rubbish.

      • So you won't watch a whole insightful TED talk because the guy tosses out a completely irrelevant rhetorical device?

        I understand your point, but obsessing over it just makes you a pedant.

  • ...that California might, just might, want to take advantage of all that water flowing down from the mountains to the ocean??? http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015... [foxnews.com] This is the same state that keeps trying to force neighboring states to sell them electricity because the enviroheads won't let California build enough power plants to support their own state!

  • Here is a thought (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17, 2015 @10:09PM (#49498357)

    The severity of this current "drought" is largely due to the incompetent fools in Sacramento putting the environmental whackos agenda over the needs of human beings to eat, wash and water. No new reservoirs, no new aqueducts, and they have dramatically drained large reservoirs to provide an unprecedented environment for the "delta" smelt, which is just like every other smelt in the ocean but only able to live in semi salty delta waters. If we had had a bunch of conservatives running the state, we would have built a massive aquarium that the public could enjoy and filled it with a sustainable population of the delta smelt, and kept our reservoir levels high so that we would have potable water when we have a drought.

    People forget that we live in a first wold country (despite the best efforts of the environmentalists) and the government still has a few things that they actually must provide and if they fuck it up, things can go very badly for them. Gray Davis fucked up electricity, and he got his ass handed to him. When we start seriously rationing water and people can't flush their toilets, Jerry "rainbow" Brown is going to get similar treatment. There are few things that can actually end civilized society, one is energy and one is water. Then we will get a republican elected, and they will do the above, build 10-20 more reservoirs, maybe pass a few laws requiring a public vote to divert water for environmental purposes, and if need be, build a big fucking aqueduct up to Oregon and Washington to pull down some of the 200 inches a year they get in western Oregon... The solution is technology and forward thinking, not the environmental whacko mud hut mentality that we have in office right now.

    • This! I remember clearly when we went through droughts in SE Queensland. The government was proposing new dams, desalination and sewage treatment.

      The public on the other hand protested the desalination and the sewage treatment, and then stuck "No Dams" stickers on the back of their cars. I was all for a government policy that cuts of water to anyone who had that sticker on their car.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      and if need be, build a big fucking aqueduct up to Oregon and Washington to pull down some of the 200 inches a year they get in western Oregon... The solution is technology and forward thinking, not the environmental whacko mud hut mentality that we have in office right now.

      Why does California think they're entitled to everyone else's water?

  • http://www.ted.com/talks/allan... [ted.com]

    A guy who killed elephants in the name of science changed his mind and brought back the green.

    I'm seriously interested in people shooting this down, because if that's the fix = then vegans are Nazis and the world will benefit from cheap meat.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Zurd3 ( 574979 )
      Animal agriculture is the leading causes of deforestation. Also the leading cause of fresh water use, thus desertification. The science/facts doesn't back Allan Savory.

      In terms of protein, you can produce a lot more by farming vegetables than meat/dairy.

      It takes 660 gallons of fresh water to produce a hamburger and 1000 gallons of fresh water to produce 1 gallon of milk. Right now, there isn't enough farm space for meat/dairy to feed the whole world.

      Interested in knowing more? Head over to www.cows

      • Please watch the video before replying. That will definitely save you from looking like an idiot.

  • The best modern farm equipment can grow alternate crops in alternate rows. It can be done in a way that is sort of mix between what had historically been done by using seasonal crop rotation and planting trees as wind breaks.

    The system works by using a high precision DGPS system so the tractor wheels are in the same spot every year so the rows stay in the same places. The hills can also be mapped so that the side of a hill may get processed first or last in a season and the amount of fertilizer or plantin

  • Ban California wine and other ridiculously wasteful agriculture.
    The drought will solve itself once retards stop growing watery-heavy crops and then shipping them out of state, water and all.
    At the very least they should be made to pay the same fucking price for their water as anyone else.

  • Why the hell are people still planting almonds in California ? 1.1 gallons of water to grow 1 nut FFS!

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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