By Karrigan Börk and Jay Lund
. . .
California is full of gifts that keep on giving.
California water provides for a bounty of social, environmental, economic, and cultural benefits. Water is the lifeblood of California farms, which have created one of the world’s great agricultural economies. Water carves our state’s beautiful landscapes and floats our boats and our bodies through some of the most magnificent places on Earth. Water and the many benefits it brings lie at the heart of what it means to be a Californian, past, present, and future from indigenous tribes, to farmers and ranchers, to outdoor recreationists, to people who drink water.
California water also provides an eternal bounty of problems (e.g., scientific, policy, and operational) that we eternally study to ensure that the benefits of California’s water keep on flowing toward its people, species, and ecosystems. Weathering floods and droughts; ensuring efficient and effective operations of California’s water infrastructure; making decisions on how best to allocate water; understanding the impacts of past decisions; figuring out how to reconcile water use and infrastructure with our native and not-so-native species; even understanding how much water we’re using in which places… There’s no limit to the challenges of studying, understanding, and managing California water.
In both scholarly and practical senses, UC Davis’ Center for Watershed Sciences has benefitted from the challenges of California water. It would be great if California water was easy to manage, with plenty of water for all. But since it’s not, we at the Center embrace these diverse eternal problems as “gifts” to an inter-disciplinary organization of scholars and researchers excited for research in search of solutions. We are thankful for California water’s many gifts to us, and the support we receive from the people of California through direct gifts, funding agencies, and the University of California. Thank you to all!
Happy Holidays!
We wish everyone a happy and resilient new year.
* To celebrate 15 years of the California WaterBlog during this season of giving, consider making a gift to the Center to help us create more meaningful opportunities for students across our programs.
About the Authors
Karrigan Börk is a UC Davis Professor of Law and the Director of the Center for Watershed Sciences. His publications run the gamut from California minimum streamflow requirements to a hatchery and genetic management plan for the reintroduction of spring-run Chinook salmon in the San Joaquin River. Prof. Börk graduated with Distinction and Pro Bono Distinction from Stanford Law School in 2009 and completed his Ph.D. dissertation in Ecology at UC Davis in September 2011. His current work focuses on Western water law.
Jay Lund is a UC Davis Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Geography, and Hydrologic Science and a has-been Director of the Center for Watershed Sciences. He has worked on many aspects of water management and policy since arriving at US Davis in 1987. He continues to work on water, infrastructure, and environmental problems in California and elsewhere, in addition to a lifelong passion for all aspects of multi-phase fluid flow and transport (sailing). Everything is about water.
* If you missed any of this month’s “12 Days of CWS” posts, check them out here!
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