The Social Production of the Great California Drought, 2012–2017

Abstract

California is still in the process of recovering from the Great California Drought. Though the drought has been alarming for California at large, given the state's dependency on water-intensive agriculture and long-distance water transport to supply its growing population, the impacts have by no means been distributed equally. In this article I highlight the ways in which the Great California Drought was socially produced, revealing how exposure to the drought was funneled to the most marginalized populations in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Tulare County is often labelled as the epicenter of the Great California Drought because it has had the most domestic well failures of any county in California. There is a clear relationship between large-scale industrial agriculture well drilling and domestic well failure, suggesting the narrative behind agricultural water scarcity in the region is not simply a climate crisis, but a socioeconomic crisis as well. East Porterville, a small community in Tulare County, was one of the most exposed communities during the drought. Their increased exposure, coupled with the social status of its residents, produced a type of political vulnerability not experienced by other Californians. This case study reveals that the Great California Drought magnified preexisting socioenvironmental inequalities and geographically uneven development. Access to water was not determined by geography, but was socially produced.