Record of Decision, Trump Administration Action 5 Operations Plan for the Central Valley and State Water Projects, per Executive Order 14181

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) | December 4th, 2025

On January 24, 2025, President Donald J. Trump issued Executive Order 14181 “Emergency Measures To Provide Water Resources In California And Improve Disaster Response I

On January 24, 2025, President Donald J. Trump issued Executive Order 14181 “Emergency Measures To Provide Water Resources In California And Improve Disaster Response In Certain Areas.” A Presidential Memorandum titled “Putting People Over Fish” was signed four days before the Executive Order and references a reliable water supply, but the specific direction to the CVP is found in Executive Order 14181. Section 2 of Executive Order 14181 requires, among other measures, (c) The Secretary of the Interior, including through the Bureau of Reclamation, shall utilize his discretion to operate the CVP to deliver more water and produce additional hydropower, including by increasing storage and conveyance, and jointly operating federal and state facilities, to high­need communities, notwithstanding any contrary State or local laws. The Bureau of Reclamation shall take all available measures to ensure that State agencies — including the California Department of Water Resources — do not interfere with the Bureau of Reclamation’s operation of the project to maximize water delivery to high­need communities or otherwise, including but not limited to the issuance of a new Record of Decision maximizing water deliveries and consistent with the 2020 Record of Decision. Subsection (g) calls for a “proposed plan, for review by the Secretaries, to appropriately suspend, revise, or rescind any regulations or procedures that unduly burden such projects and are not necessary to protect the public interest or otherwise comply with the law.” This ROD implements initial actions in response to Executive Order 14181. Click here for the Reclamation Long Term Operations page,  here for response to the Trump Action 5 gambit from California Department of Water Resources, and here for the response from the State Water Resources Control Board

San Joaquin Valley Conveyance Study

California Department of Water Resources (DWR) | November 24th, 2025

This San Joaquin Valley Conveyance Study analyzes water conveyance needs in the San Joaquin Valley (Figure ES-1). The purpose of this study is to: •Describe the impa

This San Joaquin Valley Conveyance Study analyzes water conveyance needs in the San Joaquin Valley (Figure ES-1). The purpose of this study is to: •Describe the impacts of subsidence on San Joaquin Valley conveyance facilities. •Evaluate the need for improved or expanded conveyance facilities throughout the San Joaquin Valley.  

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.

Sea level rise and flooding of hazardous sites in marginalized communities across the United States

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

Sea level rise (SLR) increases the risk of flooding at coastal sites that use and produce hazardous substances. We assess whether socially marginalized populations in the

Sea level rise (SLR) increases the risk of flooding at coastal sites that use and produce hazardous substances. We assess whether socially marginalized populations in the United States are more likely to be impacted by projected SLR-related flooding of hazardous sites that could result in contaminant releases. We identify 5500 facilities at risk of a 1-in-100-year flood event by 2100 under a scenario of continued high greenhouse gas emissions, including coastal power plants, sewage treatment facilities, fossil fuel infrastructure, industrial facilities, and formerly used defense sites. Seven states (Louisiana, Florida, New Jersey, Texas, California, New York, and Massachusetts) account for nearly 80% of projected at-risk facilities. Controlling for population density and county, a one standard deviation increase in the proportion of linguistically isolated households, neighborhood residents identifying as Hispanic, households with incomes below twice the federal poverty line, households without a vehicle, non-voters, and renters is associated with 19-41% higher likelihood of having a site at risk of SLR-related flooding within 1 kilometer (odds ratios [95% confidence intervals]: 1.19 [1.09, 1.31], 1.22 [1.08, 1.37], 1.27 [1.16, 1.39], 1.35 [1.21-1.51], 1.36 [1.21, 1.53], and 1.41 [1.32, 1.52], respectively). Results elucidate the need for disaster planning, land-use decision-making, as well as mitigation strategies that address the inequitable hazards and potential health threats posed by SLR.

Future extreme precipitation amplified by intensified mesoscale moisture convergence

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | November 18th, 2025

Extreme precipitation events are driven by complex multiscale atmospheric dynamic interactions, fuelled by available moisture. They are expected to intensify with

Extreme precipitation events are driven by complex multiscale atmospheric dynamic interactions, fuelled by available moisture. They are expected to intensify with climate change, posing increasing risks to human communities and ecosystems. However, current low-resolution climate models struggle to accurately represent key extreme precipitation-generating phenomena, limiting our ability to generate robust and reliable future projections. Here we present an ensemble of climate simulations with a 10-to-25-km resolution and an improved representation of mesoscale convective systems to assess future changes in daily extreme precipitation and its drivers. Our high-resolution simulations more realistically capture the observed spatial distribution and intensity of daily extreme precipitation over the historical period than the 100-km resolution counterparts. In a future scenario with high carbon dioxide emissions, daily extreme precipitation over land could increase by about 41% by 2100, mainly as a result of increased mesoscale moisture convergence. The impact of this dynamical contribution to extreme precipitation is underestimated by a factor of three in the low-resolution model. These results highlight the crucial role of high-resolution climate modelling in constraining future extremes and informing more effective climate risk assessments and adaptation strategies. Click here for a Science news article on the model and its evolution.  

Priorities for California’s Water: Advancing Research During Uncertain Times

Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) | November 12th, 2025

In California, research underpins all water-related activity. It is vital for coping with too much water, too little water, and rapid changes in hydrology. Whether you ar

In California, research underpins all water-related activity. It is vital for coping with too much water, too little water, and rapid changes in hydrology. Whether you are a farmer managing the precise application of water to your crops, a utility providing clean drinking water supplies to your community, or a restorationist trying to heal a damaged wetland, your actions rely upon decades of applied research that guides your actions and measures your success.  The same reliance on research applies if you are developing policies to reduce the price of water, increase its reliability, regulate its usage, and reduce hazards from floods. None of this works without a vast research enterprise that is regularly updating the science and technology we use to manage water, prepare for the future, inform the public, and address new problems as they arise. 

Human-wildlife conflict is amplified during periods of drought

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) | November 12th, 2025

Climate change–induced alterations to human-wildlife interactions are recognized to pose a fundamental challenge for global conservation initiatives. However, the exten

Climate change–induced alterations to human-wildlife interactions are recognized to pose a fundamental challenge for global conservation initiatives. However, the extent to which specific climatic disturbances influence dynamics of human-wildlife conflict across different taxonomic groups remains poorly understood. Here, we leverage an extensive dataset of community-derived human-wildlife conflict incidents to examine the influence of drought, represented by the variation in summed precipitation over the prior 12 months, on conflict reporting. We show that prolonged decreases in precipitation are associated with increased overall conflict occurrences across taxa and are significantly associated with increased conflict with carnivore species in particular. A future with increasingly severe and frequent droughts could lead to resource scarcity that not only causes conflict between humans but also between humans and the natural world around them.

Review of the Long-Term Operations of the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project

National Academy of Sciences (NAS) | November 10th, 2025

The CVP and SWP (referred to collectively as “the Projects”) rarely deliver their full contracted  amount of water. Some of this is inherent in the operation of larg

The CVP and SWP (referred to collectively as “the Projects”) rarely deliver their full contracted  amount of water. Some of this is inherent in the operation of large water projects with diverse demands in a dry and highly variable climate. A growing, complex regulatory environment of state and federal laws, some of which were created to protect fish species endemic to the Delta, has further restricted CVP and SWP operations.  These fish include the southern distinct population segment of North American green sturgeon, California Central Valley steelhead, Central Valley spring-run Chinook salmon, Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon, longfin smelt, and Delta smelt. Operating the Projects while trying to prevent species extinction can be a source of conflict if the actions to prevent extinction reduce the amount of water that can be exported. Project operation into the future will likely become more challenging as changes in various climatic factors push the listed species closer to their thresholds of survivability. Hence, in late 2023 USBR contracted with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to form an expert committee that could serve as an independent review for the CVP and SWP as they operate into the future. The Committee’s statement of task appears in Box S-1. The three actions chosen for the study—the Shasta Coldwater Pool Management Action, the Old and Middle River Flow Management Action, and the Summer-Fall Habitat Action for Delta Smelt— are perceived as consequential for species survival and controversial for their effects on water deliveries to contractors.

Navigating the Growing Prospects and Growing Pains of Managed Aquifer Recharge

National Ground Water Association (NGWA) | November 7th, 2025

Increasing water demands and declining groundwater levels have led to rising interest in managed aquifer recharge. That interest is growing in the United States—the foc

Increasing water demands and declining groundwater levels have led to rising interest in managed aquifer recharge. That interest is growing in the United States—the focus of this article—and elsewhere. Increasing interest makes sense; managed aquifer recharge can reduce water-supply challenges and provide environmental benefits, sometimes with lower costs than alternative water-management approaches. But managed aquifer recharge also faces growing pains, which will make it difficult for projects to scale up and may limit the benefits provided by those projects that do go forward. Some of the problems arise from the challenges of finding physically suitable locations for managed aquifer recharge; many derive from economics, public policy, and law; and some derive from ways in which managed aquifer recharge could exacerbate traditional equity challenges of water management. But as we explain, there also are potential solutions to these challenges, and the future success of managed aquifer recharge will likely depend on the extent to which these solutions are adopted

Groundwater Accounting Platform — Real-World Impact from DWR Investment in Open, Scalable SGMA Tools

Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) | November 3rd, 2025