Most people are already aware that California is facing one of the most severe droughts on record. One of the indications of severe drought is commonly found on trees on California?s coastal area. Recently I?ve seen these red marks on the trees in my local areas. Later I found out that they were the marks for drought-infected trees trees were specially treated with treatment drugs on their roots to survive from the impacts from the beetles.

Experts say considerable amount of trees in Southern California are showing signs of drought stress or dying due to lack of water, and further the diseases due to drought. Just like a person with a weakened immune system is more likely to be impacted by the disease, trees weakened by drought stress are at a greater risk of getting infected. These dry trees become easy targets for pests. The bark beetles, which infest and eventually kill tree, have been abundant over the warmer climate. Weakened trees over drought become easy target for the beetles and thus die out.

Losing trees will be hurting the urban ecosystem and causing local temperature to rise and home values to drop. They provide homes for animals and cool neighborhoods, and clean air. In fact, U.S department of Agriculture recently announced that street trees in California provide one billion dollars in benefits every year. It will cost considerable amount of budget to pull out and replant new trees.

In addition, one recent news report stated that the California drought could spell death for 58 million trees. Losing these trees lead to torrent of greenhouse gases. A significant amount of carbon is stored in tree trunks and would be released back into the atmosphere, contributing on carbon emission.

Experts also suggest that forest?s ability to hold water would be gone as trees die out. Forest naturally serves to ?leak out water? over time to provide more ?constant amount of water? over dry period. As a result, a crucial part of California?s water system would also be lost. This will further lead to quick evaporation, and severe water availability.

The earth?s forest take up about ?of the CO2 emitted by humans they effectively slow the speed and severity of global warming, by ?locking up? carbon in their stems and keep it there for centuries. This practice is worth about 1 trillion dollars each year.

California drought?s impact on our local trees leads to severe environmental and economic damage. In response to this challenge, many practices are in put to help out trees. People pump ground waters to irrigate trees, use water trucks, or use treatment drugs to keep trees from being severely impacted by harsh dry conditions.