There are many ways to fight the drought that are currently being discussed.
Homeowners and businesses have been asked to cut back on water use by up to 60%, lawns are becoming a thing of the past, and xeriscaping using drought-tolerant plants is becoming the new norm.
Lawmakers are discussing everything: desalinization plants, building more water containment facilities, redistributing water rights–even cloud seeding. With the human population continuing to grow at an exponential rate, all of these considerations are reasonable. Yet most are incredibly expensive and will take years to get underway–let alone make a significant difference.
One thing I am excited about is the revisiting of utilizing anti-transpirant/anti-dessicants. These types of products reduce water consumption in plants and trees by 40% by closing the stomata, which reduces evaporation. At the same time, these products also protect against other damaging environmental conditions, such as salt spray, drying winds, frost conditions and insect infestation.
While using antitranspirants is certainly not the answer to the drought problem, it can definitely ease the pain of some of our growing conditions caused by our increasing lack of water.