This is scientific American 60 second science. I'm Christopher Intagiyata.

California's most recent drought, which officially ended this spring, made national national even international news.

We're in an historic drought.

The driest on records.

One of the worst droughts in recent history.

California is in big trouble.

And that saturated coverage may have actually influenced Californians to conserve more water,

compared to an earlier drought from 2007 to 2009, which snagged far fewer headlines.

Researchers tallied all drought-related stories from nine major newspapers from 2005 to 2015.

They also counted Google Queries and saw drought-related searches spike as more news appeared.

Then they analyzed water use in the San Francisco Bay Area, and after controlling for other factors,

like weather and unemployment, they found that drought news was

significantly linked to a cut and water waste, up to an 18% drop per 100 news articles

in the two-month period. The results are in the journal Science Advances.

Study author Nusha Jami, a hydrologist at Stanford University,

says more water news from any source is good for consumers.

Obviously it's great that the media was covering the drought, but on a non-drought or non-emergency situation,

the water agencies can actually step up their education and outreach efforts and create a more sort of

two-way communication stream between them and their water users and customers.

So that the next time the state dries up,

residents might more readily turn off the tap.

Thanks for listening.

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