Urban vs Rural

The trees in Utah's forests suck up water like sponges, and leave a record in their growth rings of when there was a lot of water in the region and when there was very little. Researchers are learning to decode the tree ring record and reconstruct what Utah's watersheds have been through over the past millennium. In this episode, we bring you the story of how Utah's water past can help us plan for Utah's water future.

Nebraska leads the nation in the number of irrigated acres. The Platte River is one of the main sources of that irrigation water. Over time, those demands have increased. And farmers, water managers and seed companies are becoming more water efficient. For our in-depth report “Water Demands on the Platte,” NET News looked at a few of the ways Nebraskans are maximizing water for agriculture.

Utah’s per capita use of water is nearly the highest in the nation, just behind Nevada and Idaho. So why are we personally using so much water? According to the state Division of Water Resources, there is a pretty simple answer: it's our legacy. Utah's founders decreed that the desert should be made to blossom as a rose, and it did. It still does. But at what cost?

There's no chance that agriculture could flourish in Utah on rainfall alone. But one way to create more water in our system is to be more efficient with what we have; so researchers are working on making irrigation more predictable and more precise.