Central Coast

Monterey County Groundwater Management Plan

Monterey County Water Resources Agency (MCWRA) | May 17th, 2006

In 1992, California State Legislature adopted the Groundwater Management Act (California Water Code Part 2.7, §10753), originally enacted as Assembly Bill (AB) 3030 and

In 1992, California State Legislature adopted the Groundwater Management Act (California Water Code Part 2.7, §10753), originally enacted as Assembly Bill (AB) 3030 and amended by Senate Bill (SB) 1938 in 2002. The Groundwater Management Act provided the authority to prepare groundwater management plans and encouraged local agencies to work cooperatively to manage groundwater resources within their jurisdictions and groundwater basins. Monterey County Water Resources Agency (MCWRA), recognizing that management of its natural water resources is critical to ensuring a long-term sustainable and reliable good quality water supply, has prepared this Groundwater Management Plan (GWMP). The purpose of the GWMP is to provide a comprehensive overview of the Salinas Valley Groundwater Basin and to recommend various management strategies for the basin. Specifically, this document provides the framework for the management of groundwater resources in the Salinas Valley Groundwater Basin (exclusive of the Seaside and Paso Robles subareas) and acts as a guidance document for future groundwater projects. While this edition of the GWMP focuses on the Salinas Valley Groundwater Basin, MCWRA is responsible for the management of the water resources for all of Monterey County. Future GWMP versions will incorporate the additional groundwater basins in the County. This document has been prepared in accordance with existing regulations as outlined in the California Water Code (as referenced above) and was prepared in coordination with local agencies and interested residents through public outreach activities.

More state and local attention to financing can advance sustainable groundwater management

Berkeley Law Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment | April 12th, 2025

Multi-sensor remote sensing captures geometry and slow-to-fast sliding transition of the 2017 Mud Creek landslide

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | August 14th, 2025

Click here for the USGS California Science Center page about the Mud Creek landslide

Click here for the USGS California Science Center page about the Mud Creek landslide

Multibenefit Land Repurposing Program Annual Report 2023

California Department of Conservation (CDoC) | April 9th, 2024

The Multibenefit Land Repurposing Program (MLRP) increases regional capacity for repurposing irrigated agricultural land to uses that reduce reliance on groundwat

The Multibenefit Land Repurposing Program (MLRP) increases regional capacity for repurposing irrigated agricultural land to uses that reduce reliance on groundwater while providing community health, economic well-being, water supply, habitat, renewable energy, and climate benefits. The program provides funding for regional block grants, tribal grants, and a Statewide Support Entity to provide technical assistance to block grantees and support progress toward program goals.

Multiple lines of evidence point to pesticides as stressors affecting invertebrate communities in small streams in five United States regions

Science of the Total Environment (Elsevier) | January 24th, 2024

Multiscale drivers of extreme southern California flooding: ENSO, MJO, North Pacific jet, and atmospheric rivers

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | November 20th, 2025

Extreme rainfall and flooding, driven by a powerful atmospheric river (AR) and a persistent Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), hit Southern California in February 2024 duri

Extreme rainfall and flooding, driven by a powerful atmospheric river (AR) and a persistent Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), hit Southern California in February 2024 during the 2023–2024 El Niño, affecting over 10 million people. ARs are key contributors to extreme rainfall and flooding along the U.S. West Coast. Although the AR-MJO link has been documented, its spatio-temporal variability remains a major forecasting and risk-management challenge. Combining precipitation, stream gauge and demographic data, we quantify the physical drivers and population exposure to this extreme event. Leveraging a Lagrangian MJO precipitation tracking algorithm, we unravel the multiscale interactions responsible for the AR’s development. El Niño favored a large, long-lived MJO that interacted with the North Pacific Jet (NPJ) over more than three weeks. The MJO convective outflow modulated the NPJ by inducing negative potential vorticity advection along the tropopause. The ensuing NPJ extension and acceleration induced explosive cyclogenesis, whose AR-driven moisture transport resulted in extreme rainfall.

Municipal Stormwater Management Spending in California: Data Extraction, Compilation, and Analysis

Environmental Management (Springer) | March 23rd, 2022

Communities in the U.S. fund stormwater management programs to reduce flooding and improve and protect water quality. Few studies have attempted to quantify municipal sto

Communities in the U.S. fund stormwater management programs to reduce flooding and improve and protect water quality. Few studies have attempted to quantify municipal storwmater management expenditures. This task is important given efforts to meet increasing water quality standards and develop new revenue sources. The purpose of this study was to evaluate trends in municipal stormwater management expenditures across the state of California. The study identified and compiled publicly-available data on reported stormwater expenditures (spending) and budgets for local governments in California. Data were extracted from annual reports for over 160 public agencies. A standardized rubric of activities was developed and used to create a first-of-its-kind database of municipal stormwater budgets and expenditures. The results indicated that there is over $700 million in annual municipal stormwater spending, but this total does not represent all spending due to gaps in publicly-available data. Counties and flood control districts often have the largest total expenditures in a region, but in aggregate cities reported more spending statewide. Available data are not sufficient to adequately evaluate whether current spending meets regulatory requirements. Additionally, publicly-available data are inconsistent across geographic regions regulated by different agencies. The analysis offers a template for improved cost reporting of stormwater programs in U.S. municipalities, which can help answer key questions such as the sufficiency of current funding. Future research can use the method to evaluate spending in other states and regions, evaluate trends over time to improve outcomes, and refine the spending categories based on examples from other states. Click here for related post at UC Davis site California WaterBlog

Nearly a Million Californians Lack Access to Safe Drinking Water

State of California | July 26th, 2022

Our audit of the State Water Board’s efforts to help provide Californians with safe drinking water highlighted the following: More than 370 of the State’s water

Our audit of the State Water Board’s efforts to help provide Californians with safe drinking water highlighted the following: More than 370 of the State’s water systems, serving nearly a million Californians, exceed the maximum contaminant levels for substances that are harmful to human health. More than 150 of these systems have been failing for at least five years. Hundreds of additional water systems are currently at risk of failing. The State Water Board has not prioritized the processing of water systems’ funding applications so that the systems can improve their water quality. Over the past five years, the average length of time for water systems to complete their applications and receive funding nearly doubled, from 17 months to 33 months. The State Water Board has not established performance goals or metrics related to its cumbersome application process. Although the State Water Board provides water systems with technical assistance to plan their improvements and apply for funds, it has not adequately monitored the performance of the technical assistance providers with which it contracts. The State Water Board needs to better ensure that its staff and its contracted providers do not duplicate each other’s outreach efforts.

New and Emerging Technologies for Sustainable Fisheries: A Comprehensive Landscape Analysis

Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) | April 1st, 2021

The oceans are at an inflection point. The excesses of the 20th century — over-exploitation of most of our accessible biological resources, over-pollution by plastics a

The oceans are at an inflection point. The excesses of the 20th century — over-exploitation of most of our accessible biological resources, over-pollution by plastics and other chemicals, over-crowding of coastal and marine space by unorganized and competing interests and over-capitalization of extractive industries — are being tempered by a rapidly growing realization that these excesses are having very real consequences, not just for marine life and ocean ecosystems, but for the food security and nutrition of the world’s population, the livelihoods of the communities that depend on the ocean and the very future of humanity itself. 

New-generation pesticides are prevalent in California's Central Coast streams

Science of the Total Environment (Elsevier) | October 7th, 2021

Pesticides are widely recognized as important biological stressors in streams, especially in heavily developed urban and agricultural areas like the Central California Co

Pesticides are widely recognized as important biological stressors in streams, especially in heavily developed urban and agricultural areas like the Central California Coast region. We assessed occurrence and potential toxicity of pesticides in small streams in the region using two analytical methods: a broad-spectrum (223 compounds) method in use since 2012 and a newly developed method for 30 additional new-generation fungicides and insecticides. At least one pesticide compound was identified in 83 of the 85 streams sampled. About one-half (48%) of the 253 pesticides measured were detected at least once and 27 were detected in 10% or more of samples. Three of the top 4, and 6 of the top 10 most frequently detected compounds (chlorantraniliprole, dinotefuran, boscalid, thiamethoxam, clothianidin and the fluopicolide degradate 2,6-dichlorobenzamide) were analyzed by the new method. Pesticide mixtures were common, with two or more pesticide compounds detected in 81% of samples and 10 or more in 32% of samples. The pesticide count at a site was relatively consistent over the 6-week study. Four sites with mixed land-use in the lower basin (