How does the United States solve the problem of drought and water shortage in the West?

There is a water diversion project. In California, the most famous one is probably the state water conservancy project built in the 1950s and 1960s: the California Aqueduct.

This canal is California’s “North to South Water Diversion” project. It starts in the San Francisco Bay Area and carries water from Northern California to Southern California. The most striking feature of the spatial distribution of water resources in California is that there is more in the north and less in the south.

Perhaps you have no idea about the extent of water shortage in Southern California. Taking Los Angeles as an example, in the past ten years, the average annual precipitation in the downtown area was only 257mm. This level is only half that of Beijing and comparable to Baotou City in Inner Mongolia. This amount of precipitation is completely unable to support the 10 million people in the greater Los Angeles area. In fact, the natural rivers in central and southern California have basically disappeared as early as the middle of the last century. After World War II, in response to the economic boom and surge in immigration, the California government launched the State Water Resources Project. The total length of the California Aqueduct is 640 kilometers (for comparison, the length of the eastern route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project is 1,150 kilometers). It has two main functions: one is to provide water to farms in the Central Valley; the other is to provide water to the greater Los Angeles area. It is worth mentioning that despite the arid climate, the land in California's Central Valley is extremely fertile. It uses 1% of the agricultural land in the United States to produce 14% of the crop value, directly elevating California to the top spot as the largest agricultural state in the United States. If you see a canal or a huge gray-white pipe similar to the one pictured below while driving through California on Highway 5, it is part of the California Aqueduct Project.

However, the terrain of California is not flat. For example, when entering the Los Angeles city from the Central Valley, you will encounter the Tehachapi Mountains, which are about one thousand meters above sea level. When it is necessary to cross mountains, the California government will use very violent giant water pump projects. At the Edmonston Pump Power Station, the entire canal was raised 610 meters, the highest record in the world.

The reason why they are called water pump power plants is because on one side of the mountain, a motor is used to pump water up the mountain, and on the other side, the water coming down the mountain is used to generate electricity and recycle energy. For Los Angeles, relying solely on this water source is not enough. In addition to the California Aqueduct, the main water sources in the Los Angeles Basin are the Los Angeles Aqueduct and the Colorado river aqueduct.

The Los Angeles Aqueduct is a water conservancy project built by the City of Los Angeles. Its water source is mainly drawn from Owens Canyon in the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains; the Colorado River Aqueduct is drawn from the Colorado River in neighboring states. It is worth mentioning that the Colorado River Aqueduct provides almost all the water for the city of San Diego, and it can be said that it gave birth to the internationally renowned San Diego Agricultural Company and their star product, Jinkela Fertilizer.