And, as Alex Hall, the director of the Center for Climate Science at the University of California, Los Angeles, pointed out to me, disputes over the dwindling Colorado River still loom. Seven western states, including California, depend on the river for water, but those states have struggled to reduce their water use even as the river’s flow has plummeted because of climate change, drought and population growth.
Recent rains are not nearly enough to alleviate a crisis that has been decades in the making, Hall said. “We would need multiple years of good and healthy water inputs to recover.”