Last I was at the Rio Grande, I was surprised that there were many spots where you could simply walk across without really getting your ankles fully wet.
I wonder what the compounding negative effects of these actions will be. With reservoirs and rivers drying up from over-pumping and drought, non-regenerative aquifers are also being depleted being pumped along with the regenerative ones, which only drys and permits greater thermal load of the ground without a method for heat dissipation, which causes even greater net loss evaporation and also prevents cloud formation and rain. It's really kind of a positive feedback loop with a bad outcome.
The Mojave had extensive low-altitude conifer forests during the Boreal Holocene age, but took on its current characteristics (IIRC) about 8,000 years ago. Poster might be thinking of the cold and wet conditions of the Little Ice Age, which was a periodic climatic anomaly and thus not a useful basis for comparison.
I wonder what the compounding negative effects of these actions will be. With reservoirs and rivers drying up from over-pumping and drought, non-regenerative aquifers are also being depleted being pumped along with the regenerative ones, which only drys and permits greater thermal load of the ground without a method for heat dissipation, which causes even greater net loss evaporation and also prevents cloud formation and rain. It's really kind of a positive feedback loop with a bad outcome.