UC scientists test inexpensive way to capture El Niño rains

[KamaAina]

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/UC-Davis-scientist-develop-a-clever-way-to-6596426.php

During California's rainy months, rivers often run high and excess water flows out into the ocean.

Amid the worst drought in more than a century, all of that water lost? With an El Niño event expected to bring heavy rains this winter, isn't there an easy way to collect and store it?

Researchers from UC Davis and UC Cooperative Extension are testing a new method for capturing some of that underutilized water by diverting it from rivers into the network of canals running through Central Valley farmland. This irrigation system sits empty during the rainy months, and the scientists are looking at filling some canals with water and directing it onto suitable farmland where it can seep underground....

The team has identified 3.6 million acres of California farmland that's suitable for recharge and says that flooding it with only one foot of water could add as much as 3.5 million acre-feet of groundwater.

[petronius]

1. Very interesting idea! And it seems like that's where a lot of the runoff would

have gone naturally--dispersed into wetlands throughout the Valley--before all the management and diversion.

Hope they get a chance to test it out this coming year; i.e. I hope there's enough water and that the red tape can be dealt with...