Percentage of average precipitation, Oct. 1, 2013 – Jan. 19, 2014. Source: National Weather Service

“A crisis is a terrible thing to waste” – Paul Romer, Stanford University economist

By Jay Lund

The 2013 calendar year was the driest on record for much of California. There is almost no snow in the Sierra Nevada or Trinity Mountains, and the forecast for January is dry. We are currently in a drought, though with three months left of our normally wet season, it remains possible that 2014 will not become a drought year.

California’s history is punctuated by droughts (Hanak et al 2011). Each drought reveals problems and becomes an opportunity to focus on improving water management and expanding smaller-scale innovations. For example:

1924: Irrigation systems. This and earlier droughts caused severe losses for dryland farmers and herders, mainly in the Sacramento Valley. Most of these farmers had come from wetter climates back East. By 1924, declining outflows and growing upstream diversions from the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers brought sea salt well into the Delta, to water intakes of cities and farms. These events confirmed California’s need for large reservoir, conveyance and irrigation systems to support the growth of agriculture and cities (Pisani 1986).

1928-1934: Major water projects. Basin irrigation systems existed in much of California by this time. But this six-year drought accelerated design and construction of the Central Valley Project and served as the design standard for most of California’s water system until 1976 (1930 California Water Plan).

Folsom Lake in 1976. Source: California Department of Water Resources

1976-1977: Water conservation. Although most of today’s water infrastructure had been built, this driest two-year period on record still had severe impacts. In response, cities, particularly in the Bay Area, found they could reduce water use by as much as 40 percent during a drought. Permanent water conservation and long-term conservation plans became established for urban areas (Gilbert et al. 1990; DWR 1978).

1988-1992: Conjunctive water use and water marketing. This drought raised the importance of managing surface water and groundwater in conjunction rather than separately. It also spurred development of water markets to reduce the economic effects of drought, by allowing owners of higher-valued water to buy water from willing owners of lower-valued water (Brumbaugh et al. 1994; Lund 1991; Israel and Lund 1995, Hanak et al. 2011).

Shortages in 2009 water deliveries on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley caused some growers to abandon orchards. Source: California Department of Water Resources.

2007-2009: Confronting problems of the Delta. Though this three-year drought was relatively mild, it cost Southern California in reduced river and Delta water supplies. About 21,000 agricultural jobs were lost – 16,000 from the drought alone and another 5,000 from Delta export restrictions (Howitt et al. 2009). This drought, along with Federal court judgments on the Delta, brought attention to the problems of the Delta and groundwater in California. In 2009, the state Legislature passed a major package of reforms for managing the Delta, including a 20 percent urban water conservation target (DWR 2010).

Source: California Department of Water Resources

If the current drought persists, here are some areas to watch:

• Streamlining water market transfers. Difficulties of Delta exports and less-than-dire water conditions have mired state regulation and management of water markets. A drought will bring attention to this important approach to increasing flexibility for drought and water management (Hanak and Stryjewski 2012).
• A 2014 water bond. State bond funding can both help and disrupt long-term water management. Better long-term financing would support more effective government actions. Perhaps one more water bond can help smooth this transition (Hanak, 2013).
• Strategic decisions on the Delta. Strategic decision-making is hard with thousands of stakeholders and interests. But this year seems promising for a range of Delta and related issues. A drought will focus attention on big issues and potential changes (Lund and Hanak 2011).
• Advances in groundwater quantification, rights and management. California relies mostly on groundwater for surviving long droughts. Droughts make groundwater’s importance more obvious and worsen its decline. State action might become preferable to litigation (Lund and Harter 2013).
• Broadening flood protection. Effective programs and financing for extending Central Valley flood protection beyond major cities remain elusive. A drought could lead to improvements in flood management and policy as part of a package of water management reforms (Weiser 2013).
• Organizing systematic management of aquatic ecosystems. Managing lake, stream, and estuarine ecosystems to protect native species such as salmon is perhaps California’s least coordinated water management activity. Everyone has roles, but no one is really in charge, and there is no substantial funding for it anyway. Droughts make this problem more urgent and apparent (Katz and Moyle 2012).

These are all difficult issues, where most of the easy effective solutions have already been implemented. Real solutions will involve trade-offs and political will. In water policy, aridity often focuses attention.

Every drought springs innovations.

Jay Lund, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, is director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis.

Source: National Weather Service

Further reading

DWR, The 1976-1977 California Drought: A Review, California Department of Water Resources, September 1978

DWR, California’s Drought of 2007–2009: An Overview, California Department of Water Resources, September 2010

Jerome B. Gilbert, Walter J. Bishop and Jack A. Weber, “Reducing Water Demand During Drought Year”, Journal of the American Water Works Association, Vol. 82, No. 5, MAY 1990, pp. 34-39

Hanak, Ellen, “Viewpoints: State’s Water Funding Habit Must Change“, The Sacramento Bee, 25 Aug. 2013

Hanak, E. and E. Stryjewski, California’s Water Market, By the Numbers, Update 2012, Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco, CA

Hanak, E., J. Lund, A. Dinar, B. Gray, R. Howitt, J. Mount, P. Moyle, and B. Thompson (2011), Managing California’s Water: From Conflict to Reconciliation, Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco, CA, 500 pp

Harou, J. J., J. Medellín‐Azuara, T. Zhu, S. K. Tanaka, J. R. Lund, S. Stine, M. A. Olivares, and M. W. Jenkins (2010), Economic consequences of optimized water management for a prolonged, severe drought in California, Water Resources Research, 46, W05522, doi:10.1029/2008WR007681

Howitt, R. J. Medellín-Azuara, D. Macewan, Measuring the Employment Impact of Water Reductions, University of California, Davis. September 28, 2009

Katz, J. and P. Moyle, Wanted: An integrated strategy for recovery of Central Valley salmon, CaliforniaWaterBlog.com, Mar. 19, 2012

Lund, J. and T. Harter, California’s groundwater problems and prospects, CaliforniaWaterBlog.com, January 2013

Lund, J. and E. Hanak, Boldly approach the Delta’s future, CaliforniaWaterBlog.com, October 2011

Lund, J. What if the worst drought hit California today?, CaliforniaWaterBlog.com, April 2011

Lund, J.R., “Totally Rad Urban Drought Management from California,” in J. L. Anderson (ed.), Proceedings of the 18th National Water Resources Conference, ASCE, pp. 532-536, May 1991

Pisani, D. 1984. From the Family Farm to Agribusiness: The Irrigation Crusade in California, 1850–1931. Berkeley: University of California Press

Stine, S. (1994), Extreme and persistent drought in California and Patagonia during medieval time, Nature, 369, 546–549, doi:10.1038/369546a0

USGS, Major Floods and Droughts in California. 1989. A nice summary of the occurrence of historical floods and droughts in California

Robert Brumbaugh, R., W. Werick, W. Teitz, and J. Lund (1994), Lessons Learned From the California Drought (1987-1992), US Army Corps of Engineers, Institute for Water Resources, Alexandria, VA

Weather West , “A comparison of California’s extreme 2013 dry spell to the 1976-1977 drought“, California Weather Blog, Dec. 22, 2013

Weiser, M., “Steep hike in flood insurance rates strikes rural areas,” The Sacramento Bee, 16 Nov. 2013