Tool used: D3.js; data from the Drought Monitor

Growing up in coastal California it’s easy to forget the truth: it’s weird that we can live here at all. We owe our survival to massive hydraulic works—aqueducts and siphons and weirs bringing us water from Hetch Hetchy or the Oroville or the Colorado River.

After three years of debilitating drought, these aren’t enough. The reservoirs are dwindling, crops are being left to die, the NYT is calling us apathetic, and towns are running out of drinking water.