Tag: water management
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Weathering the drought by drawing down the bank
By Richard Howitt, Josué Medellín-Azuara, Duncan MacEwan and Jay Lund Today, UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences economists join the California Department of Food and Agriculture in releasing a second, more comprehensive and forward-looking report estimating the effects of the California drought on farm production. (UC Davis news release, Video of national press briefing) The study…
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Beyond bonds: Funding the governor’s Water Action Plan
Ellen Hanak, Brian Gray, Jay Lund, David Mitchell, Caitrin Chappelle, Emma Freeman, Dean Misczynski, James Nachbaur In late January, Gov. Jerry Brown released the California Water Action Plan, which outlines 10 strategic priorities for putting the state on a more sustainable water management path. The plan – intended to guide state water policy for the…
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Drought’s No. 1 lesson: Modernize water management
Jeff Mount, Ellen Hanak, Bruce Cain, Caitrin Chappelle, Richard Frank, Brian Gray, Richard Howitt, Katrina Jessoe, Jay Lund, Josué Medellín-Azuara, Peter Moyle, Leon Szeptycki and Buzz Thompson This year’s drought is testing how well California manages water during severe dry periods. As we head into spring and the major irrigation season, rainfall totals, snowpack, reservoir…
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Where did all that water go? Some dry numbers on today’s drought
By Greg Gartrell Various water interests lately have been blaming operators of California’s state and federal water projects for worsening this year’s drought. The claims appearing in news stories run along these lines: They exported far more water than they said they would. They drained Northern California reservoirs to fill Southern California reservoirs. They should…
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Funding water services in California
By Ellen Hanak, Brian Gray, Jay Lund, David Mitchell, Caitrin Chappelle, Andrew Fahlund, Katrina Jessoe, Josué Medellín-Azuara, Dean Misczynski, James Nachbaur and Robyn Suddeth The current drought has brought renewed calls for more conservation, reservoirs, recycled water use, stormwater capture and desalination plants. But more than calls to action are needed to make these things happen.…
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Resistance is futile: Inevitable changes to water management in California
“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt” — anonymous By Jay Lund and Ellen Hanak Water policy in California has always been about making and resisting change. The gold mining period, the growth of agriculture and cities, and today’s environmental priorities all led to fundamental changes in water and land management, law and regulation.…
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Some springtime reading on California water
Jay R. Lund, Director, Center for Watershed Sciences and the Ray B. Krone Chair of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis California is a wonderful place to study water, with so many interesting and important problems, many thoughtful and insightful authors, and much to be learned. Here is a short selection of readings on…
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Can solid flood planning improve all California water planning?
Jay R. Lund, The Ray B. Krone Chair of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis “No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood.” E.L. Kersten The best time to prepare for floods is during a drought. In December, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) released their new Central Valley flood…
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Expanding water storage capacity in California
Jay R. Lund, The Ray B. Krone Chair of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis “The old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be.” The recent report from the US Bureau of Reclamation on the economic feasibility of raising Shasta Dam illustrates that we are in a new era for considering water…
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Insights for California water policy from computer modeling
“All models are wrong, but some are useful.” G.E.P. Box By Jay R. Lund California has a very complex water system which is important to many often competing interests and purposes. Because of this, California’s water system will always be controversial. Nevertheless, decisions about managing California’s water system will be made. How can we understand…
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Whither the Delta economy?
Josue Medellín-Azuara, Richard Howitt, Jay Lund – University of California, Davis Ellen Hanak – Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco Today, PPIC and UC Davis released a new report on the economy of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. “Transitions for the Delta Economy” explores how the Delta’s economy has evolved since the early 1990s and…
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Has human water use peaked in California?
Jay R. Lund, The Ray B. Krone Chair of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis Ellen Hanak, Senior Policy Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco For over a century, water planning and policy in California assumed perpetual increases in water demands for agricultural and urban uses. Of course, nothing can…
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Delta science in a post-Wanger world
Jeffrey F. Mount, Founding Director of the Center for Watershed Sciences, University of California – Davis The Chief Scientist for the Delta has retired. No, not Cliff Dahm. He’s the Lead Scientist for the Delta Science Program (although he is returning to the University of New Mexico). Rather, it is Oliver Wanger, the mercurial judge…
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The Stockholm Syndrome in Water Planning in California
Jeffrey F. Mount, Founding Director of the Center for Watershed Sciences, University of California – Davis “…plans are nothing, planning is indispensable” – Dwight D. Eisenhower “If planning is everything, maybe it’s nothing” – Aaron Wildofsky. We all know the Stockholm Syndrome: the hostage falls in love with the hostage taker. Well, for those of…
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The benefits of floodplain reconnection
By Jeffrey Mount For more than a century, California has sought to separate floodplains from rivers. An elaborate array of levees and dams usually confine, divert or capture winter floods, supporting agriculture on rich floodplain soils and unreliably protecting urban growth in flood-prone areas. Nowhere is this approach more evident than the Central Valley. One…
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Adaptive management means never having to say you’re sorry
Jay R. Lund, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis Ellen Hanak, Public Policy Institute of California Brian Gray, University of California – Hastings, College of the Law The words “adaptive management” appear in almost every planning and policy document for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Indeed, under state law, habitat…
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An uncertain future for whitewater boating under climate change
Scott Ligare, Graduate Student Researcher, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, UC Davis Joshua Viers, Associate Research Scientist, Department of Environmental Science & Policy, UC Davis Summer arrived belatedly in northern California and high snowmelt runoff is attracting adrenaline junkies seeking to raft and kayak Sierra Nevada rivers. With its many large rivers, the west slope…
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Managing for multiple stressors in the Delta
Ellen Hanak1, Jay Lund2, Peter Moyle3, Jeffrey Mount4, Brian Gray5 and Barton “Buzz” Thompson6 Across California, native fish populations are in sharp decline, despite decades of well-intentioned efforts to reverse the effects of harmful water and land management policies (Hanak et al., 2011). As more fish species have been listed under the federal and…
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Woodman, spare that levee?
Jay Lund, the Ray B. Krone Professor of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis Policy debates sometimes seem to tragically miss the big picture. The current debate on levee vegetation in California is an example. Both sides assert noble and worthy causes—environmental and recreation interests favor trees and bushes on levees and public…
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Can California further reduce urban water use?
Jay Lund, the Ray B. Krone Professor of Environmental Engineering, UC Davis Ryan Cahill, graduate student, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Davis Reducing urban water use has become a major long-term policy goal. In 2009, California adopted a policy of further reducing urban water use by 20 percent per capita by 2020. …