CA: The Past and Future of California's Water

Scientific American: The 20th century dawned with both excitement and concern for the water future of California and the rapidly growing but arid American West. Gold fever was receding, urban populations were burgeoning, and tentative efforts at modern, irrigated agriculture were expanding. The articles in this Scientific American collection reveal beliefs common at the time: Any water flowing unused to the sea was wasted. Growth of the West could happen only through expansion of irrigated agriculture and a blossoming of the desert. And there was no water problem that American engineering could not solve.

Read article