Category Archives: Water Supply and Wastewater

Water storage successes, failures, and challenges from Proposition 1

Posted on September 9, 2018 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

by Jay Lund The California Water Commission recently allocated $2.7 billion from Proposition 1 bonds for eight water storage projects.  Proposition 1 was passed in 2014 to fund a range of projects, including “public purposes” of water storage projects, such … Continue reading →

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Los Angeles and the Future of Urban Water in California

Posted on January 22, 2018 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

by Erik Porse Los Angeles is a grand American urban experiment. It brings emerging ideas into the mainstream, sometimes for better, and sometimes for worse. In the early 20th Century, it seemed fanciful to build a metropolis in a region … Continue reading →

Posted in California Water, Planning and Management, Uncategorized, Water Supply and Wastewater | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Nudging progress on funding safe drinking water

Posted on December 24, 2017 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

by Jay Lund This year’s Nobel Prize in Economics went to Richard Thaler, who pioneered “nudging” to help people volunteer to make more personally and socially beneficial decisions.  As an example, having employees automatically enrolled for retirement contributions and then … Continue reading →

Posted in California Water, Drinking water, Nitrate, Sustainability, Uncategorized, Water Supply and Wastewater | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Facing Rollbacks, California Must Protect Drinking Water, Wetlands

Posted on October 27, 2017 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

by Richard Frank This article originally appeared on Water Deeply. You can find the original here. Californians strongly support action by state and federal agencies to ensure that the water in our streams and the water we drink are free … Continue reading →

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Groundwater Nitrate Sources and Contamination in the Central Valley

Posted on September 17, 2017 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

by Katherine Ransom and Thomas Harter In California’s Central Valley, many communities depend significantly or entirely on groundwater as their drinking water supply. Studies estimate the number of private wells in the Central Valley to be on the order of … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, California Water, Groundwater, Nitrate, Water Supply and Wastewater | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Small, self-sufficient water systems continue to battle a hidden drought

Posted on August 6, 2017 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

by Amanda Fencl and Meghan Klasic California’s drought appears over, at least above ground. As of April 2017, reservoirs were around 2 million acre feet above normal with record breaking snowpack . This is great news for the 75% of Californians that … Continue reading →

Posted in California Water, Drought, Stressors, Sustainability, Water Supply and Wastewater | Tagged | 8 Comments

Reflections on Cadillac Desert

Posted on July 9, 2017 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

by Jay Lund In 1986, when Mark Reisner published his book Cadillac Desert, I had just begun professing on water management. The book went “viral,” before the word viral had its present-day internet-intoxicated meaning.  The book offered a compelling revisionist … Continue reading →

Posted in California Water, Climate Change, education, Planning and Management, Stressors, Sustainability, Water Supply and Wastewater | Tagged | 13 Comments

San Joaquin Valley Water Supplies – Unavoidable Variability and Uncertainty

Posted on July 2, 2017 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

by Brad Arnold1, Alvar Escriva-Bou2, and Jay Lund1 1 UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences 2 Public Policy Institute of California Passage of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) and the recent drought have brought attention to chronic shortages of … Continue reading →

Posted in California Water, Planning and Management, San Joaquin River, Water Supply and Wastewater, Water System Modeling | Tagged | 8 Comments

California’s Wettest Drought? – 2017

Posted on February 5, 2017 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

By Jay Lund Wet.  After five years of drought, most of California finally has become wet.  The mountains are exceptionally wet and covered with snow.  The state’s reservoirs are fuller than their long term average (with a few exceptions).  Flood … Continue reading →

Posted in California Water, Drought, Uncategorized, Water Supply and Wastewater | Tagged | 22 Comments

“Toilet to tap”: A potential high quality water source for California

Posted on March 27, 2016 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

By Nathaniel Homan Reusing water is not a new concept to many Californians. Many municipalities across California have facilities that treat wastewater to high standards, which allows it to be reused for agricultural irrigation, landscape irrigation, and industrial use. Other … Continue reading →

Posted in California Water, Uncategorized, Water Supply and Wastewater | Tagged , , | 4 Comments