美国加利福尼亚州面临严重干旱
一份关于加利福尼亚州冬季降雪的新调查显示，美国人口最多的加州正面临历史上最严重的干旱之一。加州为美国生产近一半的水果和蔬菜，今年已是第三年遭遇干旱了。25个地方水利局已经实行限量供水。
科学家称向城市和农场供水的加州主要供水系统可能仅仅满足15%的需求量。据加州水资源部的调查显示，在正常年份山上积雪仅承载61%的用水量。而2008年积雪占正常水量的111%，春季是有史以来最干燥的。
The nation's biggest agricultural engine, the sprawling Central Valley of California, is being battered by the recession like farmland most everywhere. But in an unlucky strike of nature, the downturn is being aggravated by a severe drought that threatens to drive up joblessness, increase food prices and cripple farms and towns.
Across the valley, towns are already seeing some of the worst unemployment in the country, with rates three and four times the national average, as well as reported increases in all manner of social ills: drug use, excessive drinking and rises in hunger and domestic violence.
With fewer checks to cash, even check-cashing businesses have failed, as have thrift stores, ice cream parlors and hardware shops.
The state has put the 2008 drought losses at more than $300 million, and economists predict that this year's losses could swell past $2 billion, with as many as 80,000 jobs lost.
"People are saying, 'Are you a Third World country?"' said Robert Silva, the mayor of Mendota, which has a 35 percent unemployment rate, up from the more typical seasonal average of about 20 percent. "My community is dying on the vine."
Last year, during the second year of the drought, more than 100,000 acres of the 4.7 million in the valley were left unplanted, and experts predict that number could soar to nearly 850,000 acres, or about 344,000 hectares, this year.
