The potential of collaborative solutions to improve management of California (United States) wildlands

Restoration Ecology, Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) | November 13th, 2024

The Press and Pulse of Climate Change: Extreme Events in the Colorado River Basin

American Water Resources Association (AWRA) | June 21st, 2022

Extremes in temperature and precipitation are associated with damaging floods, prolonged drought, destructive wildfires, agricultural challenges, compromised human health

Extremes in temperature and precipitation are associated with damaging floods, prolonged drought, destructive wildfires, agricultural challenges, compromised human health, vulnerable infrastructure, and threatened ecosystems and species. Often, the steady and progressive trends (or presses) of rising global temperature are the central focus in how climate impacts are described. However, observations of extreme weather events (or pulses) increasingly show that the intensity, duration and/or frequency of acute events are also changing, resulting in greater impacts on communities and the environment. Describing how the influence of extreme events may shape water management in the Colorado River Basin in clear terms is critical to sound future planning and efforts to manage risk. Three scenario planning workshops in 2019 and 2020 were held as part of a Colorado River Conversations series, identifying potential impacts from multiple intersecting extreme events. Water managers identified climate-related events of concern in the Colorado River Basin that necessitate greater attention and adaptive responses. To support efforts to include consideration of climate-change-driven extremes in water management and planning, we explore the current state of knowledge at the confluence of long-term climate shifts and extreme weather in the Colorado River Basin related to the events of concern that were identified by scenario planning participants.

The San Francisco Bay-Delta: A failure of decision-making capacity

Environmental Science & Policy (Elsevier) | August 12th, 2009

The paper reviews the history of Bay-Delta decision-making in California in order to highlight the continuity between what happened with CALFED and what happened in the

The paper reviews the history of Bay-Delta decision-making in California in order to highlight the continuity between what happened with CALFED and what happened in the preceding decades since water project deliveries began in 1949. Throughout this period, there has been intense conflict about whether and how to transfer water from the Bay-Delta to users elsewhere—a conflict marked by a fundamental opposition of interests among stakeholders. We document how the State of California has failed to organize itself effectively to resolve this conflict and make a decision on how to manage the Delta. The strategy consistently adopted by the State was to encourage the main parties – agricultural and urban water diverters, and fisheries and other instream-protection interests – to work out a solution among themselves, rather than imposing one externally. However, economic theory suggests that a bargaining solution is unlikely to exist because of the extreme opposition of interest among the parties. The Bay-Delta history amply confirms this theoretical prediction. Thus, the State’s strategy of relying on voluntary agreement to resolve the issue is fundamentally misconceived and is, at some level, an abdication of its responsibility.

The Stakes are Rising: Lessons on Engaging Coastal Communities on Climate Adaptation in Southern California

Cities and the Environment | November 16th, 2017

Preparing for climate change is rising as a priority for many public policy agendas, driving a demand for information that allows communities to identify both cur

Preparing for climate change is rising as a priority for many public policy agendas, driving a demand for information that allows communities to identify both current and projected vulnerabilities to climate change at local and regional levels. In response, a developing climate change adaptation service sector is bringing science and technical training to policy-makers. Approaching adaptation planning through a regional lens is critical, due to the large number of stakeholders and the intensely interconnected nature of geographies, communities, and economies. Decisions made in one jurisdiction will undoubtedly affect its neighbors. In this emerging field, boundary organizations play a unique role in building capacity across jurisdictions and bridging the gaps among various community, science and government stakeholders. The University of Southern California (USC) Sea Grant Program, located in Los Angeles, has developed a robust stakeholder engagement process to help communities plan for the impacts of climate change along the urbanized coastline. In 2016, USC Sea Grant analyzed its climate change adaptation outreach program to gain insights about its effectiveness. Drawing from this analysis, this paper explores: 1) stakeholder processes; 2) communications methods, particularly the challenges of communicating scientific information; 3) barriers to planning and implementation; 4) how to identify community needs; and, 5) what kinds of investments have been made to meet those needs. Four primary lessons are identified: 1) place-based boundary organizations can be an effective broker in establishing trust among stakeholders; 2) the ever-evolving and complex nature of climate science can overwhelm stakeholders and stall progress, so it is important to emphasize key messages provided by the scientific information, rather than dive deep into technical details and methods; 3) adaptive management is a promising approach to help communities move forward; and, 4) lack of significant and sustained funding for adaptation will continue to limit progress, however, even modest investments made at the right time can be impactful. Finally, the paper discusses the challenges USC Sea Grant faced in the first six years of its climate adaptation outreach program, and provides thoughts on how to help communities continue to advance their adaptation planning goals in the years to come.

The Struggle for Water Justice in California’s San Joaquin Valley: A Focus on Disadvantaged Unincorporated Communities

University of California, Davis (UC Davis) | February 1st, 2018

In California, lack of access to clean, safe, and affordable water is a threat to public health and well-being, and violates the state’s newly codified Human Ri

In California, lack of access to clean, safe, and affordable water is a threat to public health and well-being, and violates the state’s newly codified Human Right to Water (HRTW). In low-income communities located outside city boundaries (otherwise known as disadvantaged unincorporated communities or DUCs), drinking water is often unsafe to drink. In many such localities, drinking water is contaminated by industrial by-products (usually associated with agriculture, oil and gas production, transportation, and manufacturing) and compromised by inadequate wastewater treatment and disposal systems, as well as naturally occurring toxic substances like arsenic and uranium. Many DUC residents in the San Joaquin Valley pay a triple penalty to obtain safe water: they bear the health costs of unsafe drinking water; they purchase that unsafe water at high costs; and they must also purchase “substitute” water—typically expensive bottled water—for drinking and cooking purposes. Lack of access to clean, safe and affordable drinking water has a racial and ethnic component: the vast majority of the valley’s DUC residents are people of color who also face cumulative impacts from environmental contamination brought on by proximity to air pollution, pesticides, toxic facilities and waste disposal. Without city governments to directly represent their interests and provide essential services, residents of these DUCs have been systematically deprived of access to important means of democratic governance (Anderson 2008). California’s San Joaquin Valley is the source of much of the state and the nation’s agricultural wealth. Yet it is also a region where poverty persists amidst prosperity (Taylor and Mar n 1998). Many of the region’s DUC residents hold low-wage and dangerous jobs, and confront severe and cumulative environmental contamination of their air, water, and land (London, Huang, Zagofsky 2011). The well-being of the nearly 350,000 residents living in 450 DUCs throughout San Joaquin Valley is therefore an important environmental health, and social justice issue that demands urgent attention by policy makers, public agencies and advocates. Over the past two decades, community leaders, advocates, and policymakers have pursued a range of strategies to address unsafe drinking water in the valley’s DUCs and elsewhere in California. For example, in 2004, resident advocates won a case against the City of Modesto in 2003 for its systematic exclusion from city services of communities of color living in nearby DUCs (Molina 2014). In 2011, Senate Bill (SB) 244 required cities and counties to address the infrastructure needs of California DUCs in land use and municipal service plans, and in annexation decisions. In 2012, an HRTW policy was passed in response to massive community mobilization. Known as Assembly Bill (AB) 685, and signed by Governor Jerry Brown, it codified that every human being has a right to safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water to meet basic human needs, and required state agencies to consider this right when establishing policies and regulations. A 2013 report by the Community Equity Initiative (led by PolicyLink, California Rural Legal Assistance Inc., and California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation) developed a sophisticated analysis of the conditions of DUCs in the San Joaquin Valley. California Unincorporated: Mapping Disadvantaged Communities in the San Joaquin Valley (Flegal et al. 2013) put DUCs on the map by using a new methodology to identify these communities, and to highlight the need for new policies and funding mechanisms to address the significant challenges they face. This report, and the dedicated work of water justice advocates, have greatly increased public awareness of water inequality in DUCs. This has helped direct new public funding to improve water infrastructure, and encouraged collaborative solutions among interest groups that historically have been in conflict with each other. However, all parties agree that much more needs to be done to understand the complex issues facing DUCs, and to provide their residents with safe and affordable drinking water. Our report analyzes this situation in detail, and offers several recommendations to inform policy and advocacy on how to improve water access to these communities. To do so, we have used maps of DUCs, CWSs, and State Small Water Systems (SSWSs), as well as water quality reports, demographic data, and expert interviews. Together, these sources have helped us highlight gaps in the provision of safe and a ordable drinking water. Our main conclusion is that California’s legislature, regulatory agencies, and water suppliers need to undertake more concerted and well-resourced efforts to ensure that the HRTW is ensured for all of the San Joaquin Valley’s residents.

The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act Governance Conference: Research and Practice Synthesis Report 2018

University of California, Davis (UC Davis) | June 8th, 2018

“The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act Governance Conference: Research and Practice,” held at the UC Davis in February 2018, assembled 55 social science research

“The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act Governance Conference: Research and Practice,” held at the UC Davis in February 2018, assembled 55 social science researchers as well as practitioners from across the state to discuss the ongoing implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The California Legislature passed SGMA in 2014. SGMA required the formation of new groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) by June 2017 in order to develop and implement Groundwater Sustainability Plans (GSPs) for 127 medium- and high-priority groundwater basins by 2020 and 2022. With such a large task at hand, and given the importance of groundwater to California’s public health, environment, and economy, strengthening collaboration across research teams as well as between researchers and practitioners is crucial to increasing the capacity for learning about governance processes and to bridging the science-policy divide in order to support the creation of effective governance institutions. The goals of this report are to synthesize key lessons learned about SGMA at the nexus of research and practice, and to create a roadmap and research agenda going forward. Sharing information and knowledge among research teams enables a comparative perspective that cannot be achieved by one team alone. Furthermore, perspectives from practitioners inform research directions, focus attention on relevant issues and knowledge gaps, and build relationships among the SGMA community for more collaborative applied research. Conference discussions focused on discovering what has been learned in the first three years of SGMA implementation and GSA development, identifying high priority questions for the next stage of GSP development, sharing research methods, and coordinating research activities.

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 Well Fixer's Warning

The Atlantic | August 17th, 2021

The well fixer and I were standing at the edge of an almond orchard in the exhausted middle of California. It was late July, and so many wells on the farms of Madera Co

The well fixer and I were standing at the edge of an almond orchard in the exhausted middle of California. It was late July, and so many wells on the farms of Madera County were coming up dry that he was running out of parts to fix them. In this latest round of western drought, desperate voices were calling him at six in the morning and again at midnight. They were puzzled why their pumps were coughing up sand, the water’s flow to their orchards now a trickle.

Tribal Communication Plan

California Department of Water Resources (DWR) | June 1st, 2008

Tulare Lake Fact Sheet

California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) | October 12th, 2023