Groundwater Sustainability Plan Greater Kaweah Groundwater Sustainability Agency

Greater Kaweah Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GKGSA) | January 22nd, 2020

Groundwater Sustainability Plan, County of Fresno Groundwater Sustainability Agency, Management Area A and Management Area B, Delta-Mendota Subbasin

County of Fresno | January 23rd, 2020

Groundwater Sustainability Plan, Olcese Groundwater Sustainability Agency, Kern County Subbasin

Olcese Groundwater Sustainability Agency | January 30th, 2020

Groundwater: The Water-Budget Myth

National Academy of Sciences (NAS) | June 1st, 1982

Water-resource scientists are concerned that some basic principles are being overlooked by water managers. Rather than discuss the scope of groundwater hydrolog

Water-resource scientists are concerned that some basic principles are being overlooked by water managers. Rather than discuss the scope of groundwater hydrology, we have chosen to focus on a common misconception to illustrate the point. Perhaps the most common misconception in groundwater hydrology is that a water budget of an area determines the magnitude of possible groundwater development. Several well-known hydrologists have addressed this misconception and attempted to dispel it. Somehow, though, it persists and continues to color decisions by the water-management community. The laws governing the development of groundwater in Nevada as well as several other states are based on the idea that pumping within a groundwater basin shall not exceed the recharge. It is the intent of this paper to re-examine the issue.

Growing impact of wildfire on western US water supply

National Academy of Sciences (NAS) | February 22nd, 2022

Streamflow often increases after fire, but the persistence of this effect and its importance to present and future regional water resources are unclear. This paper addres

Streamflow often increases after fire, but the persistence of this effect and its importance to present and future regional water resources are unclear. This paper addresses these knowledge gaps for the western United States (WUS), where annual forest fire area increased by more than 1,100% during 1984 to 2020. Among 72 forested basins across the WUS that burned between 1984 and 2019, the multibasin mean streamflow was significantly elevated by 0.19 SDs (P < 0.01) for an average of 6 water years postfire, compared to the range of results expected from climate alone. Significance is assessed by comparing prefire and postfire streamflow responses to climate and also to streamflow among 107 control basins that experienced little to no wildfire during the study period. The streamflow response scales with fire extent: among the 29 basins where >20% of forest area burned in a year, streamflow over the first 6 water years postfire increased by a multibasin average of 0.38 SDs, or 30%. Postfire streamflow increases were significant in all four seasons. Historical fire–climate relationships combined with climate model projections suggest that 2021 to 2050 will see repeated years when climate is more fire-conducive than in 2020, the year currently holding the modern record for WUS forest area burned. These findings center on relatively small, minimally managed basins, but our results suggest that burned areas will grow enough over the next 3 decades to enhance streamflow at regional scales. Wildfire is an emerging driver of runoff change that will increasingly alter climate impacts on water supplies and runoff-related risks.

Guide for Developing Onsite Water Systems to Support Regional Water Resilience

Pacific Institute | January 26th, 2023

Across the United States, urban communities face growing water challenges, from water scarcity to flooding, pollution, aging water infrastructure, and more. These challen

Across the United States, urban communities face growing water challenges, from water scarcity to flooding, pollution, aging water infrastructure, and more. These challenges present risks, but also an opportunity to rethink how we manage water, including adopting circular approaches in new buildings that reduce their water footprint and improve urban water resilience. Onsite water systems, for example, collect, treat, and reuse water from onsite sources, including wastewater, rainwater, and stormwater, for non-potable water uses like toilet flushing, outdoor irrigation, and cooling. Onsite water systems have the potential to provide multiple benefits for a site, water and wastewater systems, ecosystems, and communities. They can, for example, help companies mitigate water- related risks, like water shortages that threaten to disrupt business operations, and support corporate water stewardship goals. For communities, onsite water systems can enhance water supply reliability, improve water quality, reduce localized flooding, and increase urban green space. The realization and magnitude of benefits will vary with the type of system, scale of adoption, and other context-specific factors. This guide helps site developers consider how onsite water systems can be planned, designed, and operated to provide multiple benefits, and contribute to planning and designing onsite water systems that advance water resilience, support equity, support the environment, and protect public health at the site, water system, and community scales. For each of these outcomes, the guide provides sample questions to consider, stakeholders to engage, resources to examine, and analyses to perform.

Guidelines for the Small Community Drought Relief Program

California Department of Water Resources (DWR) | September 20th, 2022

Hazy Futures: Projecting the local impacts of global warming is a stubborn challenge. But cities need answers fast

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) | June 5th, 2025

A wastewater treatment plant isn’t top on everyone’s sightseeing itinerary. But on a cloudless, breezy day in April, Agmed Weber, operations manager for the Walnut Cr

A wastewater treatment plant isn’t top on everyone’s sightseeing itinerary. But on a cloudless, breezy day in April, Agmed Weber, operations manager for the Walnut Creek plant—which handles more than half of the sewage here in Texas’s booming capital city—is an enthusiastic tour guide. He marvels at the foresight of those who built the jumbo plant a half-century ago, when Austin was a third of its current size. “They were really thinking about the future,” he says. Weber feels a similar pressure—to prepare for not only continued population growth, but also a hotter future. Austin is “in a tight space where we need to think ahead,” he says.

Henry Miller Water District Revised Groundwater Sustainability Plan, Kern County Subbasin

Henry Miller Water District | July 21st, 2022

This Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) for the Henry Miller Water District (HMWD) Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) has been prepared pursuant to Water Code §1

This Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) for the Henry Miller Water District (HMWD) Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) has been prepared pursuant to Water Code §10727. HMWD is located in the Kern County Subbasin (Basin 5-22.14) as defined by the Department of Water Resources’ (DWR) Bulletin 118. The Kern Subbasin is considered to be in a condition of critical overdraft and has been designated as a high priority basin. This GSP is one of the five GSPs being prepared in the Subbasin, which collectively has and will coordinate to avoid, to the best of their abilities, any and all Undesirable Results as a result of unsustainable groundwater management practices. HMWD formed its own GSA on March 15, 2017; it is the only Water District located within the GSA. HMWD GSA is one of five GSAs that are preparing a GSP within the Subbasin. This GSP, in coordination with the four other GSPs within the Subbasin, will provide a path to sustainability and the preservation of groundwater resources for all beneficial users of groundwater. Because the Subbasin has multiple GSPs, the GSPs are prepared under a coordination agreement. This Coordination Agreement exemplifies the ways that the various GSPs were able to work together to achieve a common goal: groundwater sustainability for the Subbasin. For example, the entire Subbasin has utilized Todd Groundwater’s services to analyze historic, current, and future groundwater conditions with a C2VSIM model. This Plan includes a description of the historic groundwater conditions in the Subbasin, a Subbasin water budget, sustainable management criteria for future monitoring, and projects and/or management actions that may be implemented to ensure groundwater sustainability is achieved by 2040 and maintained through 2070. Due to size, the file has been divided. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Heresy in ENSO teleconnections: Atmospheric rivers as disruptors of canonical seasonal precipitation anomalies in the Southwestern US

Springer Nature | February 7th, 2025

In spite of forecasts for anomalous dryness based on the canonical La Niña signal, Water Years 2011, 2017, and 2023 brought copious precipitation to California and the S

In spite of forecasts for anomalous dryness based on the canonical La Niña signal, Water Years 2011, 2017, and 2023 brought copious precipitation to California and the Southwestern United States (SWUS). Although El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the main source of seasonal precipitation predictability for the region, outstanding Atmospheric River (AR) activity produced the unexpected regional wetness in each of these heretical water years (WYs). We define heretical WYs as those that result in precipitation anomalies that oppose those expected based on ENSO canon. We assess the contribution of ARs and other storms to these WYs, finding that heretical La Niña/El Niño WYs were characterized by anomalously robust/deficient AR activity. In California, precipitation accumulation during the heretical La Niña WYs was comparable to or even exceeded that observed during the exceedingly wet WY1998—the textbook canonical El Niño year. Our findings indicate a weaker/stronger relationship between ENSO and AR/non-AR precipitation, primarily driven by storm frequency. Although ARs can disrupt the ENSO-precipitation signal, ENSO still influences the frequency of AR precipitation in the southwestern U.S. desert, the region influenced by ARs that make landfall in Baja California, Mexico. These results highlight the complexity of ENSO's impact on precipitation in the Western US and underscore the need for a nuanced understanding of ENSO’s influence on ARs to improve seasonal precipitation prediction.