Elbein, S. (2022, August 18). Why Great Plains agriculture is particularly vulnerable to drought. The Hill. Retrieved August 25, 2022, from https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/why-great-plains-agriculture-is-particularly-vulnerable-to-drought/ar-AA10N9DE.
The underground water reserves under the great plains are running out of water. The water is getting exploited by the agriculture communities above and at this rate the reserves will dry out due to the unsustainable amount of water that is being pumped out. Many communities near the Texas Panhandle area have already seen a lack of water due to the reserves being depleted. Additionally, the reserves will be further affected by climate change due to a lack of rainfall to replenish the reserves.
This is yet another article on how the lack of water is affecting agriculture globally. In this case, the area is drying out due to the communities using the underground water reserves as if they wouldn’t run out of water, which inevitably leads to a decline of water in the reserve until the area is dried out. This, combined with the great impacts of climate change is causing droughts everywhere. Although sad to see, I feel as though the people of the area should have known better than to overuse a resource such as water. This seems like a great example of the tragedy of the commons.
Right, not only are we causing droughts with climate change, we’re using up all the underground water reserves… this is going downhill fast! I agree that it’s tragedy of the commons, but do you think the government should step in and start fining people for using more than x amount of water?
Thanks for reading my post! I think that is a great idea, although we would have to take into consideration the amount of people that could lose their jobs/livelihoods due to the taxes.