More with Less: Agricultural Water Conservation and Efficiency in California – A Special Focus on the Delta

Pacific Institute | September 8th, 2008

California farmers can grow more food and fiber with less water, according to the Pacific Institute report, More with Less: Agricultural Water Conservation and Efficiency

California farmers can grow more food and fiber with less water, according to the Pacific Institute report, More with Less: Agricultural Water Conservation and Efficiency in California – A Special Focus on the Delta. The report offers a comprehensive analysis of how to maintain a strong agricultural economy while improving the efficiency of water use and reducing groundwater overdraft and water withdrawals from the critically threatened Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The study finds agricultural water-use efficiency can be improved through careful planning, adopting existing, cost-effective technologies and management practices, and implementing feasible policy changes. The report also provides recommendations to overcome some of the financial, legal, and institutional barriers that can hinder farmers from implementing such adaptations and investments.

Multiple Benefits of Water Conservation and Efficiency for California Agriculture

Pacific Institute | July 29th, 2014

California farmers have made progress in updating and modernizing irrigation practices, but despite past efforts, great untapped potential remains to use water more effic

California farmers have made progress in updating and modernizing irrigation practices, but despite past efforts, great untapped potential remains to use water more efficiently. Water efficiency – defined as measures that reduce water use while maintaining the benefits water provides – has been shown to be a cost-effective and flexible tool to adapt to drought as well as to address longstanding water challenges in California. Moreover, today’s investments in efficiency will provide a competitive advantage in the future and ensure the ongoing strength of the agriculture sector in California. Water-efficiency strategies provide important benefits to farmers, ecosystems, and society. Some of the water saved represents new supply that can be dedicated to other uses. But there are also compelling reasons to seek reductions in total water withdrawals, e.g., allowing farmers to maintain and even improve crop yields and quality; protecting water quality; reducing fertilizer, water, and energy costs; and boosting profits. The multiple benefits associated with reducing both consumptive and non-consumptive water uses argues for a comprehensive approach for promoting water-efficiency improvements that allows us to address complex and interrelated water management challenges in California, including water-supply reliability, conflicts among water users, the risks of droughts, worsening water quality, and ecological degradation. This fact sheet and infographic, The Multiple Benefits of Water Efficiency for California Agriculture, describe some of these important benefits.

New water accounting reveals why the Colorado River no longer reaches the sea

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | March 28th, 2024

Nitrogen Tracking and Reporting Task Force: Final Report

California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) | December 6th, 2013

Agriculture in California is highly diverse in terms of food production, crop management, ecosystems, and climate. Nitrogen fertilizer is essential for crop food producti

Agriculture in California is highly diverse in terms of food production, crop management, ecosystems, and climate. Nitrogen fertilizer is essential for crop food production. Nitrogen fertilizer use over several decades in California has led to nitrates in groundwater. Recognizing that nitrates from agricultural nitrogen fertilizing materials have entered some California groundwater systems used for drinking water, CDFA convened the Nitrogen Tracking and Reporting Task Force in 2013 as part of a multi-pronged administration effort to address nutrient management and water quality. This Task Force was charged with implementing Recommendation 11 of several recommendations made to the Legislature by the State Water Board: “CDFA, in coordination with the Water Boards, should convene a Task Force to identify intended outcomes and expected benefits of a nitrogen mass balance tracking system in nitrate high-risk areas. The Task Force should identify appropriate nitrogen tracking and reporting systems, and potential alternatives, that would provide meaningful and high quality data to help better protect groundwater quality.” This charge was achieved through several measures including, among others, understanding and discussing the pros and cons of existing nitrogen tracking and reporting systems, identifying desirable components or elements of existing systems and evaluating the variability and complexity of California agriculture in relation to where existing systems have been implemented. Through several meetings, presentations by subject matter experts and discussion, the Task Force members came to general agreement on several components of an effective nitrogen tracking and reporting system. The recommended system addresses eight key topics including: (1) System Structure; (2) Data Elements; (3) Roles, Responsibilities and Data Accessibility; (4) Benefits of Participation; (5) Verifiability; (6) Societal Benefits of the Recommended System; (7) Limitations and (8) System Phase-in. This report presents the Task Force’s discussions and recommendations including intended outcome and anticipated benefits of such a tracking and reporting system for nitrogen use.

North Fork Kings Groundwater Sustainability Plan

North Fork Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency (NFKGSA) | December 18th, 2019

Oil, Food, and Water: Challenges and Opportunities for California Agriculture

Pacific Institute | December 1st, 2015

A new comprehensive study by the Pacific Institute  sheds light on the risks posed when oil and gas exploration and production operate alongside agriculture. “There

A new comprehensive study by the Pacific Institute  sheds light on the risks posed when oil and gas exploration and production operate alongside agriculture. “There is growing concern about competition for land and water, and the impacts of soil and water contamination on the food supply and health and safety of farmworkers and consumers,” said Matthew Heberger, the study’s lead author. The disposal of oil and gas wastewater, which contains harmful chemicals, is a particular concern for agriculture. Disposal in unlined percolation pits poses a significant risk of contaminating groundwater resources that may, in turn, be used by agriculture. While this practice has been banned in several states, it is still widely used in California’s Central Valley, one of the nation’s most important agricultural regions. There are also serious deficiencies in the way California regulates the underground injection of wastes – current practices are not sufficiently protective of freshwater aquifers that may be used as drinking water or to irrigate crops and water livestock.

On-farm flood capture could reduce groundwater overdraft in Kings River Basin

California Agriculture (UCANR) | November 16th, 2016

Chronic groundwater overdraft threatens agricultural sustainability in California’s Central Valley. Diverting flood flows onto farmland for groundwater rechar

Chronic groundwater overdraft threatens agricultural sustainability in California’s Central Valley. Diverting flood flows onto farmland for groundwater recharge offers an opportunity to help address this challenge. We studied the infiltration rate of floodwater diverted from the Kings River at a turnout upstream of the James Weir onto adjoining cropland; and calculated how much land would be necessary to capture the available floodwater, how much recharge of groundwater might be achieved, and the costs. The 1,000-acre pilot study included fields growing tomatoes, wine grapes, alfalfa and pistachios. Flood flows diverted onto vineyards infiltrated at an average rate of 2.5 inches per day under sustained flooding. At that relatively high infiltration rate, 10 acres are needed to capture one CFS of diverted flood flow. We considered these findings in the context of regional expansion. Based upon a 30-year record of Kings Basin surplus flood flows, we estimate 30,000 acres operated for on-farm flood recharge would have had the capacity to capture 80% of available flood flows and potentially offset overdraft rates in the Kings Basin. Costs of on-farm flood capture for this study were estimated at $36 per acre-foot, less than the cost for surface water storage and dedicated recharge basins.

Perceptions and responses to climate policy risks among California farmers

Global Environmental Change (Elsevier) | December 3rd, 2013

This paper considers how farmers perceive and respond to climate change policy risks, and suggests that understanding these risk responses is as important as understandin

This paper considers how farmers perceive and respond to climate change policy risks, and suggests that understanding these risk responses is as important as understanding responses to biophysical climate change impacts. Based on a survey of 162 farmers in California, we test three hypotheses regarding climate policy risk: (1) that perceived climate change risks will have a direct impact on farmer's responses to climate policy risks, (2) that previous climate change experiences will influence farmer's climate change perceptions and climate policy risk responses, and (3) that past experiences with environmental policies will more strongly affect a farmer's climate change beliefs, risks, and climate policy risk responses. Using a structural equation model we find support for all three hypotheses and furthermore show that farmers’ negative past policy experiences do not make them less likely to respond to climate policy risks through participation in a government incentive program. We discuss how future research and climate policies can be structured to garner greater agricultural participation. This work highlights that understanding climate policy risk responses and other social, economic and policy perspectives is a vital component of understanding climate change beliefs, risks and behaviors and should be more thoroughly considered in future work.

Pesticide inputs to the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, 2015–16: Results from the Delta Regional Monitoring Program

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | July 11th, 2018

Emergent hypotheses about causes of the pelagic organism decline in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta (Delta) indicate that a more complete understanding of the quality

Emergent hypotheses about causes of the pelagic organism decline in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta (Delta) indicate that a more complete understanding of the quality of water entering the Delta is needed. Less than half of all pesticides used in the Delta watershed are measured in samples collected for routine monitoring, and with new pesticides continually being registered for use, the concentrations of unmonitored pesticides in the Delta ecosystem are unknown. In response, a multi-year, cooperative effort to improve monitoring of mercury, nutrients, pathogens, and pesticides was begun by the Delta Regional Monitoring Program (RMP). In July 2015, the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Delta RMP began measuring concentrations of 154 pesticide compounds in monthly samples of surface water and suspended sediment collected at five major inputs to the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta from July 2015 to June 2016. In addition to pesticide concentration measurements, field water-quality indicators (water temperature, specific conductance, dissolved oxygen, pH, and turbidity) were measured at each site and samples were collected for the analysis of dissolved organic carbon, dissolved copper, particulate organic carbon, particulate inorganic carbon, total particulate carbon, and total particulate nitrogen. Pesticide concentrations in particulates were measured in collected suspended-sediment samples by gas chromatography with mass spectrometry, whereas concentrations measured in surface-water samples utilized a combination of gas chromatography with mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry. Samples were collected from two sites in the San Joaquin River watershed and at one site for each of the Mokelumne River, Sacramento River, and Ulatis Creek watersheds. All water samples contained mixtures of 2–25 pesticides. Pesticides were detected in 100 percent of surface-water samples. A total of 54 pesticide compounds were detected in water samples during the study period (19 fungicides, 18 herbicides, 9 insecticides, 7 breakdown products, and 1 synergist). The most frequently detected pesticide compounds were the herbicides hexazinone (95 percent) and diuron (73 percent) and the fungicides boscalid (93 percent) and azoxystrobin (75 percent). Pesticide concentrations ranged from below the method detection limits to 2,630 nanograms per liter for the herbicide metolachlor. A total of 11 pesticide compounds were detected in the suspended sediments filtered from water samples (6 herbicides, 3 insecticides, 1 fungicide, and 1 breakdown product). The most frequently detected compounds were the insecticides permethrin (7 percent) and bifenthrin (5 percent) and the herbicide pendimethalin (5 percent). Pesticide concentrations in the suspended-sediment ranged from below the method detection limit to 265 nanograms per liter for the herbicide pendimethalin.

Plan of Development Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

Interagency Delta Committee (IDC) | January 20th, 1965