In this presentation, Pacific Institute experts provided a deep dive into the untapped potential of California's alternative water supplies: urban water efficiency, water reuse, and stormwater capture...
Throughout California, innovative urban water strategies—water efficiency, water reuse, and stormwater capture—are already finding success in many communities. These cost-effective and technologically feasible strategies reduce urban water use (currently 6.6 million acre-feet per year), while boosting local water supplies...
Persistent challenges and severe drought have shone a spotlight on the vulnerability of California’s water systems. They also offer an opportunity to rethink the state’s water supplies and strategies for the 21st century and beyond.
April 1st marks the end of the wet season in California. It’s also the day the California Department of Water Resources announces key seasonal snowpack measurements and makes projections of water availability for the rest of the water year. Today, the news is extremely bad and is a call to action to do much more — and to do some things much differently.
Around the world, people and nature rely on groundwater for survival. The newly released United Nations World Water Development Report 2022 underscores humanity’s reliance on this resource, noting groundwater currently provides about half the volume of domestic water and a quarter the volume of irrigation water withdrawn globally.
In the past few years, severe droughts in India and Iran have led to a big increase in conflicts over access to irrigation and domestic water and to demonstrations against water diversions from one community to another.
In November, amid the deepening drought, the DWR and the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) issued joint recommendations to the California State Legislature for new indoor residential water use standards, along with a study supporting the recommendations (hereafter the Indoor Residential Water Use Study, or IRWUS).
With the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) now in the rearview mirror, three things are clear: 1) the water agenda received significantly more attention than previous COPs, 2) resilience and adaptation are gaining powerful traction alongside climate mitigation, and 3) the corporate sector has the opportunity to lead in this critical next stage of the climate crisis by turning commitments into tangible action.
On November 5, 2021, the U.S. Congress passed President Biden’s major infrastructure bill, HR 3684, the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The President is expected to sign the bill into law.
In the context of severe drought in California, Senate Bill 1281 (2014, Pavley) expanded reporting requirements for the state's oil and gas industry regarding produced water — the water extracted from oil and gas production. The intention of the bill is to ensure the ability to assess impacts on California’s water resources, public health, and the environment.
