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Advancing One Water Through Arts and Culture: A Blueprint for Action
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Advancing One Water Through Arts and Culture: A Blueprint for Action
U.S. Water Alliance | June 26, 2018...
Summary
No matter who we are, where we live, or what we do, water is essential to our lives. It is life’s most precious...
No matter who we are, where we live, or what we do, water is essential to our lives. It is life’s most precious resource, an indispensable ingredient for prosperity, progress, and well-being. Water challenges in the United States are vast and mounting—communities are suffering from poor water quality, drought, flooding, and more. Our water and wastewater infrastructure is aging and in urgent need of replacement and renewal. Our water systems are further stressed by increasingly unpredictable weather, sea level rise, and shifting populations.

The complex water challenges we face today cannot be solved solely by the approaches we have used in the past. Water leaders—utility managers, public officials, farmers, river keepers, business leaders, manufacturers, community leaders, philanthropy, and others—recognize that business as usual will not get us to a sustainable water future. Visionary water leaders are working to shift the paradigm of how water is viewed, valued, and managed.

They are taking a One Water approach, elevating water as a national priority, inspiring our collective imagination, and activating new solutions. Water leaders are increasingly turning to artists and cultural leaders to help bring visibility to water issues, create more inclusive and imaginative planning processes, and leverage infrastructure investments to provide additional benefits to the communities they serve. At the same time, many artists and cultural leaders have become increasingly aware of and engaged in the water issues facing their communities.

There is tremendous opportunity to utilize arts and culture strategies to advance sustainable, integrated, and inclusive management of our nation’s water resources. As creative thinkers and doers, artists can be powerful partners to water leaders seeking to reimagine traditional approaches to water planning and management, and connect with communities in new ways.

This report aims to help water leaders envision the various ways that arts and culture can advance One Water goals, and how they can most effectively partner with artists and cultural leaders. In addition to serving water leaders, we hope this document will provide artists and cultural leaders with insights on the priorities of the water sector and reveal synergies. By establishing a shared framework, we hope to enable increased collaboration between the water and arts sectors.

The report is organized in the following manner:

• Our Current Water Landscape provides a brief overview of the complex water related challenges that face our communities;

• A New Paradigm for Water: The One Water Approach describes how the water sector is embracing a more innovative, integrated, and inclusive approach to water management;

• Opportunities at the Intersection of Water, Arts, and Culture outlines seven ways that arts and culture can advance One Water goals;

• The Path Forward: Building Cross-Sector Capacity for Collaboration

offers recommendations for how we can seed and spread collaborations between arts, culture, and water leaders; and

• Art in Action presents eight case studies that demonstrate how arts and culture strategies are driving positive water related outcomes in communities across the country.

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Agricultural Water Conservation and Efficiency Potential in California
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Agricultural Water Conservation and Efficiency Potential in California
Pacific Institute | June 10, 2014...
Summary
Agriculture uses about 80 percent of California’s developed water supply. As such a large user, it is heavily impacted by the availability and...
Agriculture uses about 80 percent of California’s developed water supply. As such a large user, it is heavily impacted by the availability and reliability of California’s water resources. Agriculture can also play an important role in helping the state achieve a more sustainable water future. The challenge is to transition to an agricultural sector that supplies food and fiber to California and the world and supports rural livelihoods and long-term sustainable water use.

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Delta Tunnels Aren’t the “Fix” California Needs
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Delta Tunnels Aren’t the “Fix” California Needs
San Francisco Baykeeper | May 24, 2017...
Summary
The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is in crisis. It is not alarmist to state that the Delta-wide ecosystem—and, by extension, San Francisco Bay...
The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is in crisis. It is not alarmist to state that the Delta-wide ecosystem—and, by extension, San Francisco Bay is in collapse and that its damaged condition may spell doom for many important species and habitats. Scientific evidence has shown that the Delta is starving for freshwater, with repercussions for the entire estuary.

While there are no quick or easy solutions to increase freshwater flows, what is clear is that the Governor’s current proposal, known as WaterFix, would authorize further water diversions from this already crippled system without first establishing a path to recovery and sustainability. WaterFix proposes to build large tunnels to take more freshwater from the Delta without substantially addressing the urgent environmental issues facing these river systems. The tunnels would harm the rivers, harm the Delta, and harm San Francisco Bay.

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Five Decades of Magical Thinking: How California’s Water Policy is Founded on a Bankrupt 53-year-old Fantasy
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Five Decades of Magical Thinking: How California’s Water Policy is Founded on a Bankrupt 53-year-old Fantasy
California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) | May 5, 2012...
Summary
Recent revelations confirm that California's water policy is founded on a decades-old water deficit, one that will only be compounded by Jerry Brown's...
Recent revelations confirm that California's water policy is founded on a decades-old water deficit, one that will only be compounded by Jerry Brown's Twin Tunnels project—a boondoggle scheme that would attempt to meet unsustainable contractual obligations by draining the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta of fresh water. The real issue here is not about how water is conveyed; it's about whether there is enough water for more conveyance or storage.

When California officials built the State Water Project in 1960, they knew it would run out of water by 1981. To make up the shortfall, the state overappropriated water from the Delta. Operation of the Twin Tunnels is predicated on 1960 water availability estimates of anticipated diversions from north state rivers. These diversions from the Middle Fork Eel, the Mad and Van Duzen Rivers did not occur due to their ultimate state and federal designation as Wild and Scenic Rivers.

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Oppose the Twin Tunnels Project: A C-WIN Policy Brief
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Oppose the Twin Tunnels Project: A C-WIN Policy Brief
California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) | October 1, 2012...
Summary
It is the policy of the California Water Impact Network to: • Oppose and work to defeat the construction of the Twin Tunnels...
It is the policy of the California Water Impact Network to:

• Oppose and work to defeat the construction of the Twin Tunnels Project which would divert water from the Sacramento River to the South Delta pumps before it gets to the Bay-Delta.
• Support and work to achieve the reduction in Delta exports to a maximum of 3 million acre-feet per year. Oppose any increased Delta exports to Central and Southern California.
• Support and work to achieve the elimination of paper water from State Water Project and Central Valley Project contracts.
• Support regional water self-sufficiency through conservation, recycling, storm water capture and other “soft path” means.
• Support upgrading Delta levees to withstand both sea level rise and the risk of a major earthquake.
• Support increased water supply reliability for State Water Project urban areas by reinstatement of the Urban Water Preference in State Water contracts and returning the Kern Water Bank to the public to store
the Urban Preference south of the Delta as a drought supply.

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Retiring Poisoned Lands in the Western San Joaquin Valley: A C-WIN Policy Brief
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Retiring Poisoned Lands in the Western San Joaquin Valley: A C-WIN Policy Brief
California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) | January 1, 2012...
Summary
It is the policy of the California Water Impact Network to: •Retire poisoned lands from irrigation so that pollution from naturally high levels...
It is the policy of the California Water Impact Network to:

•Retire poisoned lands from irrigation so that pollution from naturally high levels of contaminants such as salt, selenium, boron, mercury, arsenic and molybdenum is ended.

•End wasteful and unreasonable uses of water as mandated under the California Constitution.

•Slow or stop the spread of contamination to drinking water supplies, aquifers and aquatic food webs (including those with anadromous fish) where it now occurs, thereby protecting human and public health.

•Redirect as much as 4 million acre-feet of fresh water freed from retired lands to other beneficial uses within the Central Valley watershed, including fish and wildlife refuges, Delta ecosystem restoration and instream flows, and drought-period municipal uses.

•Require that solutions for retiring the poisoned lands from irrigation result in either no net change or an actual net decrease in energy consumption associated with use of those lands.

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State of the Salmonids: Status of California’s Emblematic Fishes 2017

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State of the Salmonids: Status of California’s Emblematic Fishes 2017
University of California, Davis (UC Davis) | August 1, 2017...
Summary
California has, or had, 32 distinct kinds of salmonid fishes. They are either endemic to California or at the southern end of their ranges....
California has, or had, 32 distinct kinds of salmonid fishes. They are either endemic to California or at the southern end of their ranges. Most are in serious decline: 45% and 74% of all salmonids will likely become extirpated from California in the next 50 and 100 years, respectively, if present trends continue. Our results suggest that California will lose more than half (52%) of its native anadromous salmonids and nearly a third (30%) of its inland taxa in just 50 years under current conditions. Climate change is a major overarching threat driving population declines throughout California and strongly affects the status of 84% of all salmonids reviewed. In addition, dams, agricultural operations, estuary alteration, non-native species, production hatcheries, and myriad other human-induced threats have contributed to declines. 81% of salmonids in California are now worse off than they were in 2007, when the previous version of this report was prepared. The changes in species status are the result of the 2012-2016 historic drought, improved data collection and review, and an improved understanding of climate change impacts. Returning these iconic species to sustainable levels requires access to productive and diverse habitats which promote the full range of life history diversity necessary to weather change. We recommend (i) protecting and investing in fully functioning watersheds such as the Smith River and Blue Creek, (ii) protecting and restoring source waters such as Sierra meadow systems, groundwater, and springs so that the impacts of climate change are reduced, (iii) restoring function and access to once productive and diverse habitats such as Central Valley floodplains, coastal lagoons, and estuaries, (iv) adopting reconciliation ecology as a basis for management in human dominated landscapes, (v) improving habitat connectivity and passage to historical spawning and rearing habitat, and (vi) improving salmonid genetic management throughout California.

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Stormwater Capture Potential in Urban and Suburban California
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Stormwater Capture Potential in Urban and Suburban California
Pacific Institute | June 10, 2014...
Summary
Communities throughout California are facing serious and growing threats to their ability to provide a safe, reliable supply of water. Drought, coupled with...
Communities throughout California are facing serious and growing threats to their ability to provide a safe, reliable supply of water. Drought, coupled with over-allocation of existing water sources, is affecting cities, farms, businesses, industries, and the environment all across the state. For many communities, 2013 was the driest year in a century, and the lack of precipitation has critical implications for the continued viability of surface water and groundwater resources that supply our cities.

The long-term effects of climate change are likely to exacerbate this. Capturing and using or storing stormwater runoff when it rains can help communities increase water supply reliability—so they have the water they need when it doesn’t.

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Subsidence: A critical challenge to Friant-Kern canal water deliveries

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Subsidence: A critical challenge to Friant-Kern canal water deliveries
Friant Water Authority | January 17, 2018...
Summary
The Friant Water Authority is facing a critical challenge right now - one that has reduced our ability to deliver water to many Friant...

The Friant Water Authority is facing a critical challenge right now - one that has reduced our ability to deliver water to many Friant Division Contractor’s by nearly 60%. It is a challenge that must be met today if we are to ensure our long-term commitment to delivering high-quality, dependable water, in the amounts needed by farmers and cities in the San Joaquin Valley.

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The Case of Shifting Snow

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The Case of Shifting Snow
Climate Central | February 5, 2020...
Summary
Whether you live among palm trees or pine trees, snow plays a critical role in our climate. Snow keeps our planet cooler, significantly affects...
Whether you live among palm trees or pine trees, snow plays a critical role in our climate. Snow keeps our planet cooler, significantly affects water resources, and is a revealing indicator of climate change.

Forecasting snowfall and determining long-term trends of snow climatology are inherently challenging, but the research team at Climate Central has produced an analysis of snowfall trends across the United States. While no single overall national trend in snowfall can be discerned from the results, clear regional and seasonal patterns do emerge. In almost all areas of the country, snow is decreasing in the “shoulder” seasons—fall and spring. Results from 145 locations show that 116 stations (80%) had decreased snowfall before December, and 96 stations (66%) had decreased snowfall after March 1. Winter showed a mixed record, with more snow in northern climates, and decreasing snow in the southern regions. We also compared total snowfall from the 1970s to the 2010s and ranked the 20 cities with the biggest percentage gains and losses, using endpoint analysis.

The changing patterns of how much, when, and where snow falls have significant impacts on our climate, our economy, and our lives. This report provides a primer on the climatology of snow and includes resources on how to report on snow—or the lack of it—in your area.

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