Los Angeles Real Estate for the Design Conscious

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AGRICULTURAL PATTERNS FROM SPACE VIA NASA SATELLITE

Agricultural fields south-west of Perdizes, Brazil, photographed from the international space station. A mix of regularly gridded polygonal fields and circular centre-pivot fields mark the human land use of the region. Small tributary streams (and their adjacent floodplains) of the Araguari river extend throughout the agricultural landscape. The visual diversity of field forms is matched by the variety of crops produced here: sunflowers, wheat, potatoes, coffee, rice, soybeans and corn.

 

The Orange River serves as part of the border between Namibia and South Africa. Along the banks of this river, roughly 100km (60 miles) inland from where the river empties into the Atlantic Ocean, irrigation projects take advantage of water from the river and soils from the floodplains to grow produce, turning parts of a normally earth-toned landscape emerald green.

 

From mainland Ukraine, the Crimean peninsula extends southward, bordered on the west by the Black Sea and on the east by the Sea of Azov. Stretching across the peninsula is a network of shallow, marshy inlets sprawling over roughly 1,000 square miles (2,600 square kilometres). This network of lagoons is known as Sivash (also Syvash or Sivasÿ). Surrounding the marshy areas are agricultural fields, most of them rectangular, but some are shaped by centre-pivot irrigation systems. Urbanised areas appear along the shores of the Black Sea, and highways curve and zigzag across the peninsula.

 

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RAIN TODAY / 92* SUNDAY . . . WTF !?!?

THIS IS BULLSHIT !

 
 

CALIFORNIA'S PIPE DREAM

Once the city's main water source, the Los Angeles River is now a concrete channel fed by storm drains. City residents rely on water piped in from hundreds of miles away.

A heroic system of dams, pumps, and canals can’t stave off the California water crisis. Via National Geographic.  Photography, Edward Burtynsky.

A three-year drought has shrunk Shasta Lake to about 60 percent of its long-term level, reducing water to cities and farms.

An 82-mile-long lifeline, the All-American Canal links California's Imperial Valley to the Colorado River. This new, concrete-lined section saves 22 billion gallons of water a year over its leaky, earthen forerunner.

Tractors kick up dust in the Imperial Valley, where rainfall averages three inches a year. Irrigation enables California's farmers to grow half of all U.S. vegetables, fruits, and nuts.

Steamboats once plied Owens Lake, before Los Angeles diverted the Owens River into an aqueduct. Dust from the dry lake bed is now a major source of air pollution.   

Southern California draws much of its water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which was diked and divided into farms more than a century ago. Many of the aging levees are at risk of failure. 

Like many of the 120 golf courses in the Palm Springs area, the Eldorado Country Club uses half a million gallons of water a day on average to keep its emerald turf in top condition. The club retrofitted its irrigation system a few years ago to use recycled wastewater, but it's still waiting for its supply from the local water agency. 

As developments such as Discovery Bay increase in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, so does the flood hazard. More than a million people now live behind delta levees. 

Grass is not an option in Salton City, which survives on water pumped in from the Colorado River. With 20 million more residents expected in California by 2050, the quest for water is never over. 

Sand, salt, and scrub color the dry bed of Owens Lake, poster child for the unintended consequences of water-transfer schemes. In 1913 the entire flow of the Owens River was diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct, eventually draining the lake dry and creating the largest source of air particle pollution in the nation. Portions of the lake have been reflooded to protect the health of people living downwind. 

Year-round sun, mild winter temperatures, and millions of gallons of water from the Colorado River and underground aquifers make the desert bloom in the Coachella Valley at the foot of the Santa Rosa Mountains. Agriculture is big business in the valley, where grapes, citrus, dates, and dozens of row crops bring in half a billion dollars a year.