From crisis to connectivity: Renewed thinking about managing California’s water & food supply

Modern water management has largely focused on the near-term objectives of a particular user group, be it agriculture, urban, or environment. Over time, competing demands for our finite water resource has led to intractable water conflicts and a water infrastructure that is managed by a highly complex and fragmented network of local, state, and federal institutions. These institutional and water infrastructures abound with missing, broken, or dysfunctional connections between agricultural, urban, and environmental water users, creating negative impacts for all.

Addressing these challenges requires a new and strategic approach that is based in understanding the whole system. Fortunately, a shift toward a whole-systems approach is already developing within a number of disciplines that inform water resource management, food supply systems, and environmental stewardship.

In this report, From Crisis to Connectivity: Renewed Thinking about Managing California’s Water and Food Supply, the California Roundtable on Water and Food Supply (CRWFS) builds on this shift and identifies the concepts of connectivity and connected benefits:

» Connectivity defines the relationships that link the individual parts of a system to form a whole. It recognizes that the actions of one component within a system have an impact, both on the other components of that same system, and upon other, linked systems. The connectivity approach uses this understanding to better align the interactions between human systems (i.e., engineered resource systems, cultural norms, and institutions) and ecosystems (i.e., climatic, chemical and biological systems, and natural resources). This approach proposes that human systems are a central subsystem of the larger ecosystems, rather than systems that exist apart from and only linked to ecosystems. The goal of this alignment is to more effectively design for, and simultaneously achieve, benefits for agricultural and urban users, while ensuring environmental restoration, protection, and stewardship.

» The concept of connected benefits refers to achieving simultaneous benefits across all major water users. The idea of connected benefits builds on the positive historical trend from single to dual and multiple benefits that evolved as a way to respond to California’s increasing water management challenges.

Based on our assessment of current needs and the patterns of disconnects, we have identified three initial high-priority areas in which we believe the connectivity approach can effect significant change in California’s food and water systems. Each high-priority area has several principles to help guide assessment of water and food issues, as well as design and implementation of solutions.