According to recent news reports, 2015 is the eighth or ninth year of the current drought. Only last year were regulations suggested to cut personal water use, which essentially amounted to limiting outdoor watering to two times a week. This winter brought some rain, but by mid-March even more stringent rules were announced - water is not to be voluntarily given out at restaurants, hotels are instructed to guide guests to use their linens for mulitiple days during long stays, and no outdoor watering within 48 hours of rainfall.
Water is tied to boom and bust cycles of economic growth in the Southern California desert regions of Mojave and Colorado. Since January of 2015, I've been traveling around Southern California to take a look at how these expansions and contractions of development have been shaped by the perception of water in the last 125 years.
All images for this project shot with an iPhone 6.