Beginning in 2011, California’s most recent drought has brought four years of some of the warmest and driest seasons on record. Mendota, California in the San Joaquin Valley is a microcosm of the struggles many agriculture communities face when water resources are scarce. Known as the “cantaloupe capital of the world,” agriculture represents over half of Mendota’s economy, making unemployment one of the many challenges they face. However, community members are working to move forward and preserve the place they call home.
Medota has a population of about eleven thousand people with over 96 percent of them being Hispanic. The stories of elected officials, field workers, farmers, police, school leaders and local business owners give testament to a mounting fear for future water allocation. But their voices also give way to a shared belief—the community’s resilience will persevere through California’s drought. Mendota is presented through a multi-media piece that uses photos, videos and descriptive articles to showcase both their hardship and hope.
In a research group, several designers sought to understand the depth and complexity of this highly politicized issue by interviewing a wide variety of stakeholders, including sustainability experts, landscapers, water company executives, small business owners, reservoir forest rangers, and many more. Data synthesis led to the conclusion that residential water use is a lifestyle issue, and the only real way to conserve involves a significant shift in the collective idea of an “ideal” home—lawns, pools, and overwatered landscaping contribute to 70% of all water use by residences in the Phoenix area. The only real way to conserve involves increasing population density and creating communal green spaces.
DR. DISH is a dishwashing device that is meant to fit into the high-density living spaces that are rapidly being built in the face of the massive exodus of people into the world’s cities. To help busy apartment and condominium dwellers conserve water and time, DR. DISH converts a standard kitchen sink into a small dishwasher, which uses significantly less water than hand-washing dishes or rinsing dishes before putting them into a conventional dishwasher. Using advanced filtration technology and a powerful rinse cycle, a load dishes can be cleaned with about 2 gallons of water. Fully automating the dishwashing process also saves the user time and minimizes unpleasant contact with food residue and grease.
This device is meant to have a significant impact upon the water use of households that do not have a dishwasher, or simply do not use their dishwasher. With a low target price point and myriad convenient features, DR. DISH is a high-tech solution that promises water savings at a time when every effort toward conservation is absolutely critical. As we move toward a new era in determining water rights and imposing mandatory restrictions upon each and every person living in affected areas, creating conservation solutions that will be relevant for the lifestyles of the future is especially important, and the agility of designers in coming up with products that quickly cut consumer water consumption will be a key factor in determining whether humanity will be able to adapt to a new era in our relationship with natural resources.
The influence of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) produces pronounced regional variability in drought over the Caribbean, Central America and equatorial South America area. Through spatial statistical analyses, we identified a marked dichotomy between drought values of the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) in northern Mexico and equatorial South America as a function of the AMO. The relationship is such that significant negative correlations between the drought index and phase of the AMO are identified for northern Mexico and on the Atlantic side of Central America. This indicates that drought (negative values of the SPEI) episodes are linked to the positive phase of the AMO. Alternately, there are high positive correlations between the AMO and on the Pacific side of Central America, the Caribbean and mainly in the northern South American area closest to the equator. Although many potential causes have been proposed in explanation of precipitation variability over the region, this geographic dichotomy suggests that movement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) may play a significance role. The heightened vulnerability of the developing nations in this region to drought episodes makes forecasting droughts of great importance. These nations are greatly dependent on water intensive industries to maintain economic development. Thus, the findings of this research can assist in informing drought preparedness strategies to mitigate significant losses due to drought.
Since the 1980’s, there has been a growing interest in the concept of sustainability. The prime directive of sustainability is to balance the needs of economics, environmental health, and human society. The change in the global climate, loss of biodiversity, increased levels of pollution, and general trend toward resource scarcity have all increased the momentum of the contemporary sustainability movement. Simultaneously, poverty and nutrition scarcity have attracted many to sustainability’s principles of resource equity. What one can gather from the diversity of sustainability’s intended functions is that it’s meant to solve several problems at once. In another sense, the most impactful sustainability solutions are multipurpose. This is not to say that any given solution is a panacea. On the contrary, sustainability advocates often dispute the existence of so-called “silver bullets” for these global issues. While this tends to reign true, it does not stop policy makers, communities, or researchers from attempting to employ multifaceted solutions. One such example is the myriad of sustainability issues associated with industrial agriculture. With the compounding issues of high water consumption, habitat destruction via land use change, biodiversity loss and climate change, industrial agriculture appears to be a damaging system. Areas like Arizona are projected to be affected by many of these issues. It thus stands to reason that if Arizona is to aggressively address its long-term drought, as well as global sustainability issues, a systematic change in farming practices needs to be made. Firstly, an analysis of the agricultural and water histories of Arizona will highlight the events most relevant to the region’s contemporary issues. Following this, the analysis will frame the greater problem through specific pieces of evidence associated with water scarcity in Arizona. Then, a summary of findings will illustrate the fundamental theories surrounding regenerative agriculture and three of its alternative forms: permaculture, dryland farming, and carbon farming. These theories will be instrumental in recommending a useful conception of regenerative agriculture for Arizona; it will be known as a Regenerative Dryland Farming System (RDFS). The extent and utility of current solutions will then be explored. The remainder of the section will illustrate the principles of the RDFSs, explore their potential weaknesses, and recommend policy for their successful deployment. Overall, it will be argued that RDFSs should fully replace industrial agriculture in Arizona. This will be vital in addressing the nine planetary boundaries and freshwater reality of the region.