The Twin Tunnels: Ruinous to Ratepayers, Catastrophic for the Environment

California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) | January 1st, 2014

Water is California’s most essential resource. It is limited in availability—in some years, extremely limited, forcing devastating delivery cut-backs to cities, farms

Water is California’s most essential resource. It is limited in availability—in some years, extremely limited, forcing devastating delivery cut-backs to cities, farms and the environment. A recent paper in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment concludes that the average flow in the Sacramento River—the state’s major source for developed surface water—could decrease by 20 percent by 2050 largely due to climate change. By that same year, California’s population is expected to top 50 million, up from the current figure of 38 million. In other words, our water supplies will dwindle as our population burgeons. Meanwhile, the state’s water delivery policies are already demonstrably incapable of providing water to citizens, agriculture and commerce while simultaneously sustaining essential ecosystems. In response, Governor Jerry Brown and his allies in the state legislature and agribusiness are promoting the “Twin Tunnels” boondoggle: a massive conveyance system that will shunt water under the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta to the south state.

The U.S. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: Water Components

Pacific Institute | November 12th, 2021

On November 5, 2021, the U.S. Congress passed President Biden’s major infrastructure bill, HR 3684, the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The Presid

On November 5, 2021, the U.S. Congress passed President Biden’s major infrastructure bill, HR 3684, the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The President is expected to sign the bill into law. The bill is the largest single federal investment in infrastructure in a generation, with the funds to be expended over five years. It aims to rebuild and replace failing, aging, and outdated water, energy, transportation, and communications systems. As the first significant federal investment in climate resilience, it also begins to address the growing consequences of climate change, including intensifying extreme weather events, increasing temperatures, and rising sea levels, on communities throughout the United States. One key component of the Act is the set of proposals to address the wide range of water-related challenges facing the United States. This Pacific Institute analysis provides an overview of how the Infrastructure Act addresses these challenges.

The Unaffordable and Unsustainable Twin Tunnels: Why the Santa Barbara Experience Matters

California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) | July 1st, 2016

PURPOSE OF THIS REPORT 1. Examine the deficiencies and cost impacts of Governor Brown's Twin Tunnels/CA WaterFix, illustrating the untenable financial burden these pro

PURPOSE OF THIS REPORT 1. Examine the deficiencies and cost impacts of Governor Brown's Twin Tunnels/CA WaterFix, illustrating the untenable financial burden these proposals place on local water agencies and ratepayers; 2. Highlight that the Tunnels/CA WaterFix will not provide more water when needed, i.e., during drought; 3. Explain the unintended consequences of participation in the State Water Project (SWP) utilizing the experience of Santa Barbara County as an example of the statewide problem; 4. Highlight the exorbitant cost and unreliability of importing water from the State Water Project (SWP) to the communities of Santa Barbara's South Coast.

The unequal burdens of water scarcity

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | January 19th, 2023

Curtailing water use during drought is costly, but those costs are not evenly distributed. Socio–hydrological modelling shows how water burdens fall more heavily on poo

Curtailing water use during drought is costly, but those costs are not evenly distributed. Socio–hydrological modelling shows how water burdens fall more heavily on poor households in response to water conservation policies.

The Uneven Nature of Daily Precipitation and Its Change

American Geophysical Union (AGU) | October 19th, 2018

Rain falls unevenly in time, which can lead to floods and droughts. It is widely known that precipitation is uneven, but it is difficult to quantify. Here we develop a me

Rain falls unevenly in time, which can lead to floods and droughts. It is widely known that precipitation is uneven, but it is difficult to quantify. Here we develop a measure for the unevenness of precipitation: the number of the wettest days each year in which half of the annual rain falls. We apply this to rain observed by gauges around the world. At all gauges combined, it takes only 12 days each year for half of the rain to fall. We also apply the measure to climate model simulations, with projections for the rest of the century. In the climate model simulations, the change in future rainfall is even more uneven than rainfall today: In a scenario with high greenhouse‐gas emissions, half of the increase in rainfall happens in the wettest 6 days each year. Rather than assuming more rain in general, society needs to take measures to deal with little change most of the time and a handful of events with much more rain.

The uneven response of different snow measures to human-induced climate warming

American Meteorological Society (AMS) | June 25th, 2013

The effect of human-induced climate warming on different snow measures in the western United States is compared by calculating the time required to achieve a stat

The effect of human-induced climate warming on different snow measures in the western United States is compared by calculating the time required to achieve a statistically significant linear trend in the different measures, using time series derived from regionally downscaled global climate models. The measures examined include the water content of the spring snowpack, total cold-season snowfall, fraction of winter precipitation that falls as snow, length of the snow season, and fraction of cold-season precipitation retained in the spring snowpack, as well as temperature and precipitation. Various stakeholders may be interested in different sets of these variables. It is found that temperature and the fraction of winter precipitation that falls as snow exhibit significant trends first, followed in 5–10 years by the fraction of cold-season precipitation retained in the spring snowpack, and later still by the water content of the spring snowpack. Change in total cold-season snowfall is least detectable of all the measures, since it is strongly linked to precipitation, which has large natural variability and only a weak anthropogenic trend in the western United States. Averaging over increasingly wider areas monotonically increases the signal-to-noise ratio of the 1950–2025 linear trend from 0.15 to 0.37, depending on the snow measure.

The Untapped Potential of California’s Urban Water Supply: Water Efficiency, Water Reuse, and Stormwater Capture

Pacific Institute | April 12th, 2022

In this assessment, we quantify the potential for a range of water strategies in urbanized parts of California to both reduce inefficient and wasteful water uses and expa

In this assessment, we quantify the potential for a range of water strategies in urbanized parts of California to both reduce inefficient and wasteful water uses and expand local water supplies. This assessment finds that urban water-use efficiency improvements could reduce statewide urban water use by 2.0 million to 3.1 million acre-feet per year (AFY). The reuse potential of municipal wastewater is 1.8 million to 2.1 million AFY, and the stormwater capture potential is 580,000 AFY in a dry year to as much as 3.0 million AFY in a wet year. Previous assessments have shown that these efficiency and supply options are more cost effective than traditional – and increasingly hard to implement – options to expand supply. Programs to tap this potential would tremendously help solve California’s long-standing water problems.

The Untapped Potential of California’s Water Supply

Pacific Institute | June 10th, 2014

California could be saving up to 14 million acre-feet of untapped water – providing more than the amount of water used in all of California’s cities in one year – w

California could be saving up to 14 million acre-feet of untapped water – providing more than the amount of water used in all of California’s cities in one year – with an aggressive statewide effort to use water-saving practices, reuse water, and capture lost stormwater, according to a new analysis released by the Pacific Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Our current approach to water use is unsustainable, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t enough water to meet our needs,” said Kate Poole, NRDC senior attorney with the water program. “At a time when every drop counts, we need to employ sensible and cost-effective 21st century solutions that will help us reduce uses today while promising new, resilient supplies for cities and farms tomorrow.” “As climate change brings more extreme weather, including droughts, ramping up forward-thinking solutions now will help us be more resilient,” said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute. “With widespread adoption of available water conservation and efficiency improvements, demand can be met more readily, less expensively, and with less pressure on our tapped-out rivers and groundwater basins. Moreover, water reuse and stormwater capture can help boost local supplies.”

The Use of Smolt Survival Estimates to Quantify the Effects of Habitat Changes on Salmonid Stocks in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Rivers, California

Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) | July 1st, 1989

The value of ecosystem services in global marine kelp forests

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | April 18th, 2023

While marine kelp forests have provided valuable ecosystem services for millennia, the global ecological and economic value of those services is largely unresolved. Kelp

While marine kelp forests have provided valuable ecosystem services for millennia, the global ecological and economic value of those services is largely unresolved. Kelp forests are diminishing in many regions worldwide, and efforts to manage these ecosystems are hindered without accurate estimates of the value of the services that kelp forests provide to human societies. Here, we present a global estimate of the ecological and economic potential of three key ecosystem services - fisheries production, nutrient cycling, and carbon removal provided by six major forest forming kelp genera (Ecklonia, Laminaria, Lessonia, Macrocystis, Nereocystis, and Saccharina). Each of these genera creates a potential value of between $64,400 and $147,100/hectare each year. Collectively, they generate between $465 and $562 billion/year worldwide, with an average of $500 billion. These values are primarily driven by fisheries production (mean $29,900, 904 Kg/Ha/year) and nitrogen removal ($73,800, 657 Kg N/Ha/year), though kelp forests are also estimated to sequester 4.91 megatons of carbon from the atmosphere/year highlighting their potential as blue carbon systems for climate change mitigation. These findings highlight the ecological and economic value of kelp forests to society and will facilitate better informed marine management and conservation decisions.