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This Is How Much the Drought Has Cost California

A University of California-Davis study says the drought has put a $2.7 billion dent in the state's economy and put 18,600 people out of work.
Photo by Michael Nelson/EPA

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California's ongoing drought could cost the state nearly $3 billion this year, and the steps being taken by farmers to keep their land irrigated could cause more problems down the line, a state university estimates.

Researchers from the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California-Davis, which has been monitoring the now 4-year-old drought, put the tab for 2015 alone at $2.7 billion. Farmers are leaving more than half a million acres unplanted this year — nearly 7 percent of the state's irrigated farmland. And they're pumping more groundwater to irrigate the fields they have tilled, a move that raises their costs and could create future shortfalls. The center estimates that 18,600 jobs have been lost due to the drought, which scientists say is the most severe to hit the region in over a millennium.

"The socioeconomic impacts of an extended drought, in 2016 and beyond, could be much more severe," the center's preliminary study concluded.

The state's 2015 "water year" runs from October through September and is already the driest on record. California depends on mountain snowpacks for much of its water, but this year's annual benchmark reading came in at 5 percent of average.

Governor Jerry Brown has declared a statewide emergency and imposed 25 percent water cuts for cities statewide, while the state Water Resources Control Board has ordered some water suppliers to make cuts as high as 36 percent over 2013 levels — targets some water districts say will be impossible to reach.

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