>>2850988The largest single user of the Colorado river's water resources is by far California (50%+). There are 20 million people living in southern California that literally do not have a single year-round 250-1,000+ cfs (cubic feet per second water flow) river other than the Colorado river, this is a nightmarishly fucked metric. There are also 3 million Nevadans with the exact same fate (the entire state of Nevada). For comparison, Arizona has 3 such rivers plus the Colorado (4 total), along with 400 perennial streams, and over 2,000 perennial springs, and several extremely massive aquifers but even with this AZ is at parity or slightly overpopulated now as well (7.7 million people, not counting 5 million+ snowbirds in winter in Maricopa, Pinal and Pima counties alone). In general, in the USA 70-80% of all human water use is dedicated solely to agriculture, even in states that average 50 inches of annual precipitation. The southwestern USA has also been in a longterm drought since the 1990s at least, studies indicate that the longest ever drought in CA and AZ lasted 140-180 years in a row in geophysical record analysis (tree rings, sediment studies). The SW USA was also largely depopulated by native Americans during the little ice age due to severe cold and drought (cold weather usually leads to lower precipitation overall, but also less evaporation which means water lasts longer above ground). The current drought is largely attributed to conditions in the eastern Pacific ocean and Jetstream patterns, it can end or start up again at any time but usually wetter periods also last decades to centuries just like drought period do.
