Last I was at the Rio Grande, I was surprised that there were many spots where you could simply walk across without really getting your ankles fully wet.<p>I wonder what the compounding negative effects of these actions will be. With reservoirs and rivers drying up from over-pumping and drought, non-regenerative aquifers are also being depleted being pumped along with the regenerative ones, which only drys and permits greater thermal load of the ground without a method for heat dissipation, which causes even greater net loss evaporation and also prevents cloud formation and rain. It's really kind of a positive feedback loop with a bad outcome.
This scares me a lot, especially living in Colorado. I hate to be one of those "No Vacancy" people, but our aquifers simply can't support any more people here. It seems crazy when you start diverting water from the other side of the continental divide just to keep Denver growing. Same goes for California; just because you want to live there doesn't mean you should, just because you want to farm there doesn't mean it makes any sense and isn't incredibly destructive. The land was never capable of supporting what they're doing out there long term, and when you start diverting water from else where, you need to sit and ask yourself, "am I doing something really stupid?"<p>For the amount of water and other resources we have in the West, I wonder sometimes if there just are way too many people living out here in general.