The FEWSION team was featured in the front page spread on The New York Times on Monday the 22nd:
The Colorado River Is Shrinking. See What’s Using All the Water
Hint: It’s less about long showers and more about what’s for dinner.
Posted May 22, 2023
The New York Times | Elena Shao
Read the full article in The New York Times here.
The New York Times article highlights an article published in Nature Sustainability on March 2, 2020:
Water scarcity and fish imperilment driven by beef production
Abstract
Human consumption of freshwater is now approaching or surpassing the rate at which water sources are being naturally replenished in many regions, creating water shortage risks for people and ecosystems. Here we assess the impact of human water uses and their connection to water scarcity and ecological damage across the United States, identify primary causes of river dewatering and explore ways to ameliorate them. We find irrigation of cattle-feed crops to be the greatest consumer of river water in the western United States, implicating beef and dairy consumption as the leading driver of water shortages and fish imperilment in the region. We assess opportunities for alleviating water scarcity by reducing cattle-feed production, finding that temporary, rotational fallowing of irrigated feed crops can markedly reduce water shortage risks and improve ecological sustainability. Long-term water security and river ecosystem health will ultimately require Americans to consume less beef that depends on irrigated feed crops.
FEWSION.us reported on the 2020 publication here.
The NAU Review reported on that study as well:
Fallowing cattle-feed farmland simplest way to alleviate western water shortage, FEWSION-based NAU study finds
Posted March 2, 2020