California is facing its fifth year in drought. (Center, 2016) The drought is estimated to cost the state of California $600 million dollars and 4,700 jobs this year. This is better compared to last year’s cost but still a significant amount. What could help California during this time and in the future would be to incorporate disaster mitigation strategies during recovery phase and to find methods to help reduce the impact or occurrences of droughts. Mitigation includes risk reduction, loss minimization, or the alleviation of potential negative impacts associated with disasters. (McEntire, 2011) A drought is a long period of abnormally low rainfall, lasting up to several years. ("the definition of drought", 2016) Without …show more content…
Like Australia, California is reducing its water-demand through short-term and long-term conversation measures. Short-term measures include restrictions on the number of days’ lawns can be watered and calls for shorter showers and fewer toilet flushes. These short-term measures are fast and relatively inexpensive way to meet state-mandated reduction targets in potable water use and have helped reduce drawdown from surface water dams and groundwater aquifers. (Turner, 2016) Long-term measures include the state-run toilet and turf replacement rebate programs and many locally managed incentive programs. (Turner, …show more content…
The positive part about the mitigation process for a drought is that it will have people prepared for the reoccurrence of a drought, may one occur, which would allow for people to have sufficient amount of water for a long period of time during a drought. The negative part about the mitigation process is the amount of funding and participation people have to put into preserving the water. Like stated previously in the essay, citizens of California have restrictions on how they can use the water that they are provided and the California government is spending more money on funding projects to conserve water. Since California has to be focused on the disaster that is currently occurring they may push other responsibilities to the side, until the drought is over, which can also be a negative