Most of the southwestern U.S. is in the midst of some level of drought. Parts of California, Nevada, Oklahoma and Texas are all seeing extreme drought, as rainfall and winter snowpacks have been far below average.
One of the biggest factors affecting water supplies in these hot, dry places is evaporation. Reservoirs can lose as much water to evaporation as the water that’s actually pumped out of them for drinking water.
Can anything can be done about it? From the Here & Now Contributors Network, Matt Largey of KUT explains two different approaches for limiting evaporation: a film of vegetable oil and pumping water underground.
Reporter
- Matt Largey, news editor for KUT in Austin, Texas. He tweets @mattlargey.
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