Essay On California Water System

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Formation of California’s Water System The water in California is a vital necessity to the survival of all things, abiotic and biotic in all the ecosystems, biomes and habitats. Without it, nothing would be able to survive. There are two types of sources of water: Surface water and ground water. Surface water includes streams, rivers, and lakes. Ground water deals with rainfall which is absorbed into the ground and then pumped out. Over 40% of the states water is due to ground water alone and up to 60% during droughts. There are ten major drainage basins for surface water. These include the North Coast, Sacramento river, North Lahontan, San Francisco Bay, San Joaquin River, Central Coast, Tulare Lake, South Lahontan, South Coast, and finally the Colorado River. The annual precipitation ranges from as low as four millions of acre feet to over 56 millions of acre feet. One of the major cycles involved in the movement, distribution, and occurrence of water in California involves the Hydrologic Cycle. This cycle takes place in the hydrosphere; which is the watery envelope that contains all the water vapor in the…show more content…
Although only 77 years in length, it brought dramatic changes in the way water was perceived and used in California. They first settled in Alta California in 1769 with a mission system in San Diego. They brought new culture and new set of value systems in which nature was perceived as a divine gift from god to be exploited for the betterment of humankind and in the name of Spain. They saw water as a symbol of power because their homeland had few rivers, so their customs recognized the importance of this scarce resource. Through shared community rights, water systems were built throughout the mission system with the Native Americans providing much of the labor. The Indian Dam was built in 1807 in the Foothills above the mission so the water could flow by

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