The California drought has been in a state of urgency for the past couple of months, and it is time for students and community members to take it seriously.

The drought is caused by high pressure right off the coast which keeps storms from reaching the land. This is a natural phenomenon but it is staying longer than it should, as pictures show the extent to which California is suffering from this disaster. The drought has had major impacts on the flows of water and ground runoff, which heavily take away from our natural supplies of water.

If the ecosystems and reservoirs were to loose all their water, what would happen? Many of these areas would go arid, and the likelihood of fires would greatly increase due to the increased amount of dead material lying around. How might we put out these fires? Our water would be gone. California would be set ablaze under our sun. Rather than being the perfect paradise we hold so dearly, California would turn into something similar to the Sahara Desert.

With new technologies on the way, such as the desalination plant, it is easy to diminish the reality of this issue. But the truth is, the whole state cannot depend on desalination plants. The cost of desalinization is beyond a considerable amount to fix the entire state of California. This is just ignoring the issue at hand.

We have to do our part to help in such a time of need. You might ask: How can I help? The key is: conservation, conservation and more conservation.

Rather than dragging yourself out of bed and taking a fifteen minute hot shower to wake up, cut it down to a five minute shower. It will have just the same effect on you.  If everyone cut their shower times in half, tons of water could be saved as we wait for our natural resources to resupply.

Citizens must recognize the necessity to change their ways and adapt to the current predicament. The typical California environment consists of a chaparral biome, a very desert-like climate.L awns consist of  non-native species that we bring in from across the continent to make our yards look nice. These plants take up a lot of useful water and serve us no purpose, so instead- invest in more drought-resistant plants. Small efforts like this may not seem to be help dramatically, but if everyone does their part, it will have a huge effect on the conservation of water.