WATER

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LOS ANGELES TOLD TO SHORTEN SHOWERS AS DROUGHT CONTINUES

REUTERS -  Los Angeles residents were urged on Wednesday to take shorter
showers, reduce lawn sprinklers and stop throwing trash in toilets in a
bid to cut water usage by 10 percent in the driest year on record. With
downtown Los Angeles seeing a record low of 4 inches of rain since July
2006 -- less than a quarter of normal -- and with a hot, dry summer
ahead, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the city needed "to change course
and conserve water to steer clear of this perfect storm."

[In fact, a perfect storm, albeit without the wind, would help Los
Angeles considerably but politicians tend to be a bit weak on the
metaphorical side]

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSN0642623620070606?
feedType=RSS&rpc=22


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CITY GROWTH REDUCING RAINFALL

NEW SCIENTIST - The extraordinary growth of China's cities is changing
regional climate and reducing rainfall, say researchers. The region
around Hong Kong, known as the Pearl River Delta, is experiencing
extraordinary urbanization: in the nine years from 1988 to 1996, urban
areas expand by 300%. And that growth is leaving its mark on the
region's rainfall patterns.

Using a statistical technique adapted from economics, Robert Kaufmann at
Boston University, US, and colleagues compared satellite imagery of
urban growth with data from 16 local weather stations. After controlling
for year-to-year fluctuations in weather, they found that urbanization
was having a statistically significant impact on rainfall around the
region's cities. . .

It is not the first time that cities have been seen to impact on
weather. Temperatures are known to be higher in urban areas, for
example. But Kaufmann's work is different in that is suggests that
cities may be cutting rainfall, says Marshall Shepherd, who researches
urban climatology at the University of Georgia in Athens, US, and was
not involved in the study. . .

The decrease in rainfall may be because the loss of vegetation, and the
fast rate at which water runs off city streets, reduces the transfer of
water to the atmosphere, he adds.

http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12005-city-growth
-is-reducing-rainfall.html


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