California WaterBlog

by Jay Lund Governor Newsom recently called for a state portfolio of actions to manage water under rapidly changing climate and other conditions.  This post reviews the state of water portfolio planning in California today. In this complex changing world, … Continue reading →

Erik Porse, Stephanie Pincetl, Diane Pataki, and Tom Gillespie Outdoor landscapes in California use water for irrigation, especially during summer.  Outdoor water use is the largest portion of residential water use, especially in hotter inland areas and cities with larger … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund People are interested in California water problems, and they ask reasonable questions.  Here is a first installment of short science-based answers to some reasonable questions often heard at public and private discussions of water in California.  (Longer … Continue reading →

by Nicholas Pinter, Jay Lund, Peter Moyle A review of 170 years of water-related successes in California suggests that most successes can be traced directly to past mistakes.  California’s highly variable climate has made it a crucible for innovations in … Continue reading →

by Carson Jeffres, Eric Holmes, and Andrew Rypel State, federal, and local governments, water users, and the public are all concerned with the survival of salmon.   Over decades, and especially recent years, most salmon runs have severely declined in California. … Continue reading →

Jay R. Lund, Director, Center for Watershed Sciences and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis California is a wonderful place to study water.  So many interesting and important problems, thoughtful and insightful authors, and much … Continue reading →

By Cassidy Craford and Hannah Safford Californians cite drought and water-supply challenges as some of the most important environmental issues facing the state today. A whopping 85% of California voters agree that water supply is a “big problem” or “somewhat … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund   Only some parts of the world have safe drinking water almost ubiquitously, and only in the last century.  (We lucky few!)  In these countries, drinking water safety relies on a complex portfolio of actions and accountability … Continue reading →

April 1, 2019 By Nestle J. Frobish The California Department of Water Resources is working to employ the ongoing break-up of the Antarctic ice cap to provide a vast supply of water for California.  Current plans are to employ ocean … Continue reading →

By Josselin Rouillard Overview of French and Californian agricultural groundwater management France and California face a common challenge of managing overdraft in intensively exploited aquifers. As of 2018, large areas of France and California have overexploited groundwater (see maps below). … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund “Water problems in the western United States, when viewed from afar, can seem tantalizingly easy to solve: all we need to do is turn off the fountains at the Bellagio, stop selling hay to China, ban golf, … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund The tweet below, shows slight (but still frightening) levee overtopping this week on Cache Creek, just north of Woodland, California.  It also illustrates the combined operations of flood preparation and response, with a simultaneous floodplain evacuation order.  … Continue reading →

by Peter B. Moyle Red Hills Roach are small (adults are 60-70 mm in total length) bronzy minnows that live in a challenging environment. They survive in a few small streams that start as seeps in a hot dry landscape, … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund Most readers of this blog are water management wonks who toil in the bureaucracies and professions of water management, the water-industrial complex, so to speak.  We mostly work on technical issues and internal and inter-organizational rules and … Continue reading →

by Peter B. Moyle   If you inspect small streams in northern California, including those that seem too small or warm for any fish, you will often see minnows swimming in the clear water. Chances are you are seeing a … Continue reading →

By Lisa Howard originally published January 21, 2019 When the peer-reviewed journal San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science launched fifteen years ago, the editors chose what was then a somewhat new model of scientific publication known as “open access.” At … Continue reading →

By Jay Lund, Josue Medellin, John Durand, and Kathleen Stone Droughts and floods have always tested water management, driven water systems improvements, and helped water organizations and users maintain focus and discipline.  California’s 2012-2016 drought and the very wet 2017 … Continue reading →

By Kahui Lim and Hannah Safford Water reuse is becoming more important to water security in arid regions like California. The California Recycled Water Policy calls for an increase of 1 million acre-feet of reused water per year by 2020 … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund Public health is every society’s and every drinking water system’s most fundamental objective.  The prosperity and existence of civilizations rest on drinking water being safe, available and affordable. Prosperity and democracy together seem almost essential to having … Continue reading →

by Sarah Yarnell, Alyssa Obester, Ted Grantham, Eric Stein, Belize Lane, Rob Lusardi, Julie Zimmerman, Jeanette Howard, Sam Sandoval-Solis, Rene Henery, and Erin Bray To protect California’s native aquatic species, stream flows need to be managed to support important ecological … Continue reading →