I am embarking on a short series of articles to answer questions that I have about California water. It is in no way a comprehensive treatment of the vast system of California water. I also am in no way an expert on any part of the subject.
To start, I wanted to give some simple outlook on the unit that is used, an Acre-foot (AF) of water, since I am a city boy.
Compared to a football field, an Acre is about 91 percent of the yardage marked size of the field, 90.75% to be more exact. See the figure at the bottom. The red part is the Acre. An Acre-foot of water is an Acre covered by a foot of water (which makes for a very soggy football field). There are 640 Acres per square mile, by definition of the Acre.
The Acre-foot is equivalent to 325,851 gallons, which is about a year’s water for a family of 5, or a years water for two smaller families for a year.
For anyone from outside the United States and the Imperial set of units, an Acre is 4047 square meters, or 0.405 hectares. An acre-foot is 1233.5 cubic meters. An acre-foot is therefore also 1.233 million liters.
