Coastkeeper Releases New Animated Map Showing Correlation Between Region’s Water Supply Sources and Drought

Map illustrates severity of and growing risk in current water supply sources

SAN DIEGO, August 12, 2014 – How does the severe drought in California and the Southwest impact San Diego’s imported water supply? Today, San Diego Coastkeeper, which protects drinkable waters in San Diego County, published an animated map that overlays drought conditions and an outline of watersheds from where the region imports water. The map shows the increasing severity of the drought through the last year as it relates to the watersheds from where San Diego imports water.

“It’s devastating to see this illustrated visually,” said Travis Pritchard, San Diego Coastkeeper program manager. “The watersheds from where San Diego draws its water are nearly 100 percent impacted by drought.”

The map’s color-coded portion depicts the severity of drought throughout California with data from the US Drought Monitor, a joint venture between the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

To see the drought’s impact on our water supply sources, Coastkeeper overlaid the outlines of the Colorado River Basin and the Sacramento River Basin combined with the San Joaquin River Basin, which flow into the Bay Delta. The maps show the past year, using one map a month. For consistency, the drought maps are captured on the last Thursday of each month.

For more information on San Diego Coastkeeper, please visit www.sdcoastkeeper.org.

###

SAN DIEGO COASTKEEPER: Founded in 1995, San Diego Coastkeeper protects and restores fishable, swimmable and drinkable waters in San Diego County. Visit us online at http://www.sdcoastkeeper.org.