Advancing Ecosystem Restoration with Smarter Permitting

Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) | August 16th, 2021

California’s ecosystems form the bedrock of the state’s well being and prosperity. Yet many of these ecosystems—which are vitally important to the state’s water s

California’s ecosystems form the bedrock of the state’s well being and prosperity. Yet many of these ecosystems—which are vitally important to the state’s water supply, agriculture, wildlife, and economy—are in dire health. Climate change and accelerating biodiversity loss threaten to further disrupt these natural systems and the benefits they provide. While the state urgently needs to speed the pace of ecosystem restoration, such projects often find themselves mired in regulations that were originally intended to prevent environmental destruction.

Advancing Hydro-Economic Optimization to Identify Vulnerabilities and Adaptation Opportunities in California’s Water System

California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) | August 27th, 2018

Long-term shifts in the timing and magnitude of reservoir inflows will affect water supply reliability in California. Hydro-economic models can help explore climate chang

Long-term shifts in the timing and magnitude of reservoir inflows will affect water supply reliability in California. Hydro-economic models can help explore climate change concerns by identifying system vulnerabilities and adaptation strategies for statewide water operations. This work contributes a new open-source limited foresight implementation of the CALVIN model, a hydro-economic model including roughly 90% of California’s urban and agricultural water demands. The model includes the ability to determine water allocations on an annual basis without knowledge of future availability, and to efficiently evaluate ensembles of streamflow projections representing a range of possible future climates. We then assess the vulnerability of the statewide system to changes in total annual runoff and the fraction of runoff occurring during winter, which primarily depends on temperature. Results are analyzed with a focus on adaptation strategies, aided by the economic representation of water demand in the model. These strategies include changes to reservoir operating policies, and conveyance and storage expansion. As water availability decreases, model results show quadratic increases in shortage cost, and corresponding increases in the marginal costs of adaptation strategies and environmental flow constraints. Reservoirs adapt to warmer climates by increasing average storage levels in winter and routing excess runoff to downstream reservoirs with available capacity. Both small and large changes to reservoir operations were observed compared to historical hydrology, showing that no single operating strategy achieves optimality for all reservoirs. Increasing the fraction of winter flow causes small increases in total shortage cost, indicating the ability to manage a changing hydrologic regime with adaptive reservoir operations. The results of this project improve estimates of the cost of climate change to California’s water system under a range of future conditions and highlight adaptation strategies that minimize costs of increased hydrologic variability. 

Advancing One Water Through Arts and Culture: A Blueprint for Action

U.S. Water Alliance | June 26th, 2018

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, pr

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.

Advancing Stormwater Capture for Greener Schools in Los Angeles

Pacific Institute | August 15th, 2024

In communities across the United States, schools provide an enriching and safe environment for children to learn and grow. Yet urban schools, particularly those serving

In communities across the United States, schools provide an enriching and safe environment for children to learn and grow. Yet urban schools, particularly those serving under-resourced communities, are often covered in asphalt and offer little green space. The lack of shade, combined with intensely hot temperatures, can create dangerous conditions, with reports of asphalt reaching 140 degrees Fahrenheit and rubber surfaces reaching 165 degrees Fahrenheit (Klivans 2023). During heavy rains, runoff from these impervious surfaces floods and drains into the surrounding community. Climate change has exacerbated these impacts, leading to more extreme weather events, including hotter temperatures, severe droughts, and intense storms.

Advancing Strategic Land Repurposing and Groundwater Sustainability in California

Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) | March 26th, 2021

For decades, California has been on a steady trajectory toward water scarcity, which is now exacerbated by climate change. More frequent and intense droughts and incre

For decades, California has been on a steady trajectory toward water scarcity, which is now exacerbated by climate change. More frequent and intense droughts and increased demands have affected the reliability of surface water supplies. As a result, many have looked to groundwater to fill the gap. Groundwater overpumping has resulted in adverse impacts such as reduction in groundwater storage, subsidence, water quality degradation, sea water intrusion, wells going dry and depletion of interconnected surface waters throughout many areas in California’s San Joaquin Valley. These impacts led to the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) by the state Legislature in 2014, which mandates sustainable use of groundwater by 2040 for the most critically overdrafted basins.

Aerial imagery dataset of lost oil wells

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | September 17th, 2024

After the Flood: As the world’s largest dam removal takes shape, restoration ecologists are poised to transform a landscape

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) | October 19th, 2023

Standing on an outcrop of volcanic rock, Joshua Chenoweth looks across the languid waters of California’s Iron Gate Reservoir and imagines the transformation in store f

Standing on an outcrop of volcanic rock, Joshua Chenoweth looks across the languid waters of California’s Iron Gate Reservoir and imagines the transformation in store for the landscape. In early 2024, operators will open the floodgates on the 49-meter-high dam that blocks the Klamath River, allowing the more than 50 million tons of water it impounds to begin to drain. Once it’s gone, heavy equipment will dismantle the structure. All that will remain of the 11-kilometer-long reservoir that filled the valley for 60 years will be steep-sided slopes coated in gray mud, split once again by a free-flowing river.

Age Determination of the Remaining Peat in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, California, USA

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | October 9th, 2007

The Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta of California was once a 1,400 square kilometer (km2) tidal marsh, which contained a vast layer of peat ranging up to 15 meters (m) thi

The Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta of California was once a 1,400 square kilometer (km2) tidal marsh, which contained a vast layer of peat ranging up to 15 meters (m) thick (Atwater and Belknap, 1980). Because of its favorable climate and highly fertile peat soils, the majority of the Delta was drained and reclaimed for agriculture during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Drainage of the peat soils changed the conditions in the surface layers of peat from anaerobic (having no free oxygen present) to aerobic (exposed to the atmosphere). This change in conditions greatly increased the decomposition rate of the peat, which consists largely of organic (plant) matter. Thus began the process of land-surface subsidence, which initially was a result of peat shrinkage and compaction, and later largely was a result of oxidation by which organic carbon in the peat essentially vaporized to carbon dioxide (Deverel and others, 1998; Ingebritsen and Ikehara, 1999). Because of subsidence, the land-surface elevation on farmed islands in the Delta has decreased from a few meters to as much as 8 m below local mean sea level (California Department of Water Resources, 1995; Steve Deverel, Hydrofocus, Inc., written commun., 2007). The USGS, in collaboration with the University of California at Davis, and Hydrofocus Inc. of Davis, California, has been studying the formation of the Delta and the impact of wetland reclamation on the peat column as part of a project called Rates and Evolution of Peat Accretion through Time (REPEAT). The purpose of this report is to provide results on the age of the remaining peat soils on four farmed islands in the Delta.

Age, growth, and trophic ecology of the Redeye Bass, an alien invader of California rivers

American Fisheries Society (AFS) | August 22nd, 2024

Aging dams, political instability, poor human decisions and climate change: recipe for human disaster

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | January 16th, 2025