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Op-Ed: Does the Bay Area Have the Water It Needs to Grow?

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With the right efficiency and land use measures, the region can add 2.2 million homes by 2070.

It seems as though the two things the Bay Area has the least of are housing and water. The region has a shortfall of 699,000 housing units, which has driven housing costs to astronomical heights, and pushed 35,000 of our neighbors into temporary housing or onto the streets. Our colleagues at San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR),a public policy think tank, have found that the region needs to build an astonishing 2.2 million homes by 2070 to meet future demand and make up for the present shortfall.

Meanwhile, the region is experiencing a record-setting drought, just four years after the last historic drought ended. Gov. Gavin Newsom has urged Californians to reduce water use by 15%. Salmon are on the brink of extinction, and communities upstream from us live beside rivers choked with toxic algae because too much water is diverted for farms and cities. Against this backdrop, you may wonder — does the Bay Area have enough water to continue to grow?

Lake Hennessey, a reservoir for Napa, is pictured in June. Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a proclamation on Oct. 19, extending the drought emergency statewide and asking residents to redouble their water conservation efforts amid an exceptionally dry year when wildfires have ravaged large swaths of the state. (Mike Kai Chen/New York Times)

In a new report from SPUR and Pacific Institute, “Water for a Growing Bay Area,” we found that the answer is a resounding yes, if the region adopts comprehensive water efficiency measures and smart land-use planning. To answer this question, we modeled six scenarios for future water demand, varying how the region grows and how efficiently people use water in homes and businesses.

One of the most interesting findings was how much people could save water inside their homes just by installing the best available plumbing appliances. The typical Californian uses about 50 gallons per day inside their homes (including about eight gallons lost to leaks). If that same person upgraded to the best technology commonly available on the market and fixed most of their leaks, they’d use just 27 gallons per day. People could use about half the water they use today indoors, without changing their habits — just by changing their equipment.

There also are big opportunities to use less water outdoors. About a third of water in the Bay Area is used outside. With a combination of adopting water-efficient landscaping in residential yards and pursuing compact growth strategies, the region could reduce its water use by 28% compared to a business-as-usual approach. Building dense infill housing reduces per-person water use for two reasons. People with smaller yards use less water outdoors. And adding a new accessory dwelling unit or an extra story to an apartment building doesn’t increase the total amount of irrigated space in the region, whereas converting open space to a new housing development does.

Green lawns are a popular feature of outdoor spaces in the Bay Area. But large home lawns are a relic of 17th-century English aristocrats, who lived in a country where it rains regularly throughout the year. There are other plants that are attractive and better-adapted to California’s climate. That doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be lawns anywhere. But they should be reserved for spaces where people gather and play on the grass.

Las Vegas has recently taken an important step to promote water-efficient landscapes that can serve as a model for Bay Area communities. Leaders there have told businesses and public agencies that they need to remove all nonfunctional grass — grass that is purely decorative — by 2026. There will still be grass in parks and schoolyards, but no more vast expanses of lawn surrounding a parking lot or office building. Homes that have lawns can keep them, as long as they don’t exceed 5,000 square feet. New homes can have up to 500 square feet or up to 50% of their yard covered in lawn, whichever is greater. These kinds of rules are understandable, enforceable and can yield big water savings.

The commercial sector can also play an important role in reducing water use. The commercial sector (businesses and other non-residential institutions) currently accounts for 37% of all water use in the Bay Area, but there’s comparatively little known about how businesses use water. Business owners have argued that laws requiring them to become more efficient could stifle the economy. It’s hard to counter them, because we don’t have good studies on water use in businesses.

It’s people at home who have done the lion’s share of water conservation in California. When California’s landmark water efficiency law, known as 20×2020, passed in 2009, cities were required to decrease their water use by 20% — but the commercial sector only had to become 10% more efficient. That placed most of the burden to become more efficient on homes.

With overall efficiency gains of 1% to 2% per year, businesses and institutions could reduce their water use by more than 15%, even while adding 2 million additional jobs to the region. In the future, the state should undertake more ambitious studies of commercial water use, and use that information to set efficiency targets for the commercial sector.

Our study shows the Bay Area can add 2.2 million new homes and 2.1 million new jobs by 2070 and use no more water — or even less — than it does today, through the impact of incremental changes in water efficiency and land use made over the span of decades.

This result may seem surprising — but it isn’t. Since the 1980s, the region’s population grew by 30%, yet total water use decreased by 30%. The keys are to continue to make homes, businesses and landscapes more efficient, and pursue compact land-use planning.

Laura Feinstein is sustainability and resilience policy director at SPUR, a Bay Area public policy think tank. She holds a doctorate in Ecology from UC Davis. Follow her on twitter: @DrLFeinstein.

Anne Thebo is a senior researcher for Pacific Institute, a global water think tank. She holds a doctorate in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UC Berkeley.

This op-ed first appeared in the San Francisco Examiner.

Water for a Growing Bay Area: How the Region Can Grow Without Increasing Water Demand

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The San Francisco Bay Area is projected to add two million jobs by 2070, attracting millions more people. To prevent housing from becoming even more unaffordable, the region needs to build 2.2 million new housing units. But the rivers the Bay Area relies on to supply much of its water are already at a breaking point, upstream communities are suffering from a degraded environment, and climate change is likely to make the water supplies even more unpredictable. How can the Bay Area grow and build the housing it needs without taking more water from the environment?

This report shows that the Bay Area can add two million jobs, 6.8 million people, and 2.2 million homes by 2070 and offset all water use from this growth in two ways: through modest improvements in water use efficiency and by locating new growth in areas that are already developed, known as infill locations. The report also lays out key recommendations for how policy-makers can rise to this opportunity, with a focus on managing water demand with conservation and efficiency, pursuing compact land use strategies with a high share of multifamily housing, and strengthening mechanisms for sharing water regionally.

The report was produced by SPUR in partnership with the Pacific Institute.

In This Series

Case Study: “Capturing Stormwater to Diversify Water Supplies”

Case Study: “Scaling Up Centralized Water Recycling”

Case Study: “Water-Wise Development on a Corporate Campus”

Case Study: “Protecting Groundwater Through Open Space Conservation”

Case Study: “Water Offsets as a Strategy to Grow in a Water-Scarce Environment”

Case Study: “Water Efficiency and Reuse in Affordable Housing”

Resources

Appendix A: Indoor Residential Water Use

Appendix B: Outdoor Residential Water Use

Appendix C: Commercial, Industrial, and Institutional Water Use

January 28, 2021January 28, 2021

What Role Should Onsite Water Reuse Play in Silicon Valley Water?

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By Cora Kammeyer

Water systems in most large urban areas like California’s Silicon Valley are linear and highly centralized. Water is cleaned at a central treatment plant, distributed to homes and businesses through a vast and decades-old system of pipes, used once, and then returned through another set of pipes to a wastewater treatment plant, before being discharged into a nearby waterway like the San Francisco Bay. This 20th-century approach to the urban water system is no longer sufficient to address 21st-century water challenges like climate change, growing populations and economies, and aging infrastructure.

The 20th-century approach to the urban water system is no longer sufficient to address 21st-century water challenges like climate change, growing populations and economies, and aging infrastructure.

There is a growing opportunity to build urban water systems that are distributed and circular, adding flexibility and providing back-up when integrated with centralized systems. This means capturing and treating water closer to the point of use and reusing that water multiple times before sending it back down the drain. Distributed, circular approaches like onsite water reuse have the potential to provide many benefits. They can, for example, provide alternative water supplies in the face of growing scarcity, add operational flexibility in the face of disruptions, provide opportunities for more green space, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and more. But distributed water systems can also present challenges for water managers, and they require new strategies and new ways of thinking.

Distributed, circular approaches like onsite water reuse have the potential to provide many benefits.

The Pacific Institute report The Role of Onsite Water Systems in Advancing Water Resilience for Silicon Valley examines the opportunities and challenges of corporate investments in onsite non-potable water reuse in California’s Silicon Valley. In Silicon Valley, where commercial development is growing in the face of increasing water scarcity, sea level rise, and water quality challenges in the San Francisco Bay, a handful of leading companies are starting to invest in onsite water systems. Facebook installed California’s largest blackwater recycling system at its Menlo Park headquarters. Microsoft is capturing rainwater and treating wastewater onsite at its new Mountain View campus as part of the site’s Net Zero Water certification. Google has plans to implement onsite water reuse at its new Bay View campus at Moffett Field. These companies are making investments in onsite water systems to meet corporate sustainability goals, improve water security, and reduce their water impact on the surrounding region.

The Role of Onsite Water Systems in Advancing Water Resilience for Silicon Valley comprises three sections exploring the benefits and challenges of implementing onsite water systems in the region. First, the report provides a synthesis of the perspectives of Silicon Valley stakeholders — including water managers, regulators, technology companies, engineers, and academics — on onsite water systems. Second, it lays out a range of potential outcomes and impacts — both positive and negative — from onsite water systems. Third, a set of geospatial analyses in Silicon Valley assess the relative opportunities for onsite water systems to integrate with regional planning and contribute to regional water management strategies. These assessments incorporate key factors such as priority development areas, the reach of existing recycled water networks, expected sea level rise impacts, and more.

The report concludes that private sector investments in onsite water systems have the potential to provide numerous benefits to the region, but only if they are incorporated into the long-term regional water planning and decision-making. The report recommends:

Convening regional stakeholders to facilitate a constructive dialogue about the role of onsite water systems in Silicon Valley;
Conducting more detailed technical analyses to examine how best to integrate onsite water systems into existing centralized water and wastewater systems;
Evaluating policies and practices for effectively integrating onsite water systems into existing water and wastewater systems; and
Identifying opportunities to implement other distributed water strategies in concert with onsite water system implementation.

To read the full report, click here.

The Role of Onsite Water Systems in Advancing Water Resilience in Silicon Valley

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California’s Silicon Valley faces a host of water challenges. The region’s water and wastewater infrastructure are aging, and in some cases are nearing the end of useful life. Continued growth and development are putting additional strains on the region, and climate change is adding to that burden through sea level rise, more intense storms, and more severe droughts. These challenges present risks but also an opportunity to rethink the design, configuration, and operation of water and wastewater systems.

This report examines the opportunity for corporate investments in onsite non-potable water systems in Silicon Valley. These systems capture and treat water sources generated from within or surrounding a building, such as wastewater or stormwater, and then reuse the treated water onsite or locally for non-drinking purposes, such as toilet flushing, clothes washing, and irrigation. The report finds that these distributed systems can work effectively with centralized water systems to foster resilient communities. This is best done by deliberately siting and integrating onsite water systems into the broader water network. The authors provide a set of recommendations to ensure effective siting and integration of onsite water systems.

Key Findings

Key findings from the report include:

California’s Silicon Valley faces many water-related challenges, from water scarcity to urban flooding, aging infrastructure, and more. These challenges present risks, but also an opportunity to rethink water management approaches.
There is a growing interest in distributed water solutions to help improve Silicon Valley’s water resilience. For example, leading technology companies in Silicon Valley are investing in onsite non-potable water systems (ONWS) at new office and campus developments. These systems collect, treat, and reuse water from sinks, showers, laundry, toilets, and cooling towers for toilet flushing and outdoor irrigation.
If implemented widely, ONWS have the potential to fundamentally shift water use and wastewater production patterns in Silicon Valley, altering water, greenhouse gas, and other resource needs. This can provide a wide range of benefits, such as enhancing water supply reliability, improving water quality, reducing localized flooding, increasing urban green space, and advancing innovation. However, it can also create adverse impacts if done poorly and without integration with other water systems.
Corporate investments in ONWS have the potential to provide multiple benefits to Silicon Valley’s water systems and communities, but only if implemented in coordination with broader regional water planning efforts. This requires meaningful collaboration between the public and private sectors.
In Silicon Valley, areas slated for new development or redevelopment that are not served by existing recycled water networks could be good candidates for ONWS. This may not lead to a significant reduction in the overall water demands of the region but may reduce the need for expensive and disruptive water infrastructure expansion projects.
Distributed and centralized systems can complement one another to create more resilient communities if ONWS are deliberately sited and effectively integrated into the broader water network, with explicit acknowledgement and management of the interconnections. In contrast, implementation of ONWS that ignores system constraints and opportunities could lead to undesirable outcomes.

Ending Conflicts Over Water: Solutions to Water and Security Challenges

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Water-related conflict and political instability are on the rise across the globe. But while intensifying water challenges and the threats they pose to security are well documented, relatively few solutions have been presented.

This report fills the gap by exploring several dozen strategies to reduce water-related conflicts in key water-insecure hotspots around the world. The solutions are organized into four broad categories: natural resources, science, and engineering approaches; political and legal tools; economic and financial tools; and policy and governance strategies. These solutions provide decision-makers with options for addressing unique water challenges and can help improve water resources management, drought response, flood prevention, and access to safe, reliable, and affordable water for all. The report also offers detailed case studies of key regional challenges including Iran, Iraq, sub-Saharan Africa, India, and elsewhere.

The report was produced by the Pacific Institute in collaboration with the World Resources Institute and the Water, Peace and Security Partnership.

Resources

Interactive Tool: Water Conflict Chronology

Comment Letter on USEPA WaterSense Program

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This comment letter submitted to the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) expresses strong support for both maintaining and strengthening the WaterSense Program at the USEPA, and includes specific recommendations for improving the program.

Incorporating Multiple Benefits into Water Projects: A Guide for Water Managers

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Adapting to climate change, coupled with the need to address aging infrastructure, population growth, and degraded ecosystems, requires significant investment in natural and built water systems. These investments present a significant opportunity to support not only water, but to provide economic, social, and environmental benefits. By considering co-benefits, water managers can increase funding through collaborative partnerships and co-funding opportunities, build partnerships, and garner public support.

This guidebook uses a “multi-benefit framework” to provide a modular, flexible approach for water managers interested in incorporating multiple benefits into water management decisions. It can be applied to a wide range of projects and programs, from designing water efficiency programs to prioritizing stormwater project funding and developing co-funding models for multi-benefit projects. A list of “Dos” and “Don’ts” is provided, covering everything from project vision to defining key metrics and communicating with decision-makers.

In this Series

Scaling Green Stormwater Infrastructure Through Multiple Benefits in Austin, Texas: Distributed Rainwater Capture on Residential Properties in the Waller Creek Watershed

Resources

Webpage: A Multi-Benefit Approach to Water Management

Resource Library: Multi-Benefit Resource Library

Scaling Green Stormwater Infrastructure Through Multiple Benefits in Austin, Texas: Distributed Rainwater Capture on Residential Properties in the Waller Creek Watershed

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The City of Austin, Texas is facing an increasingly uncertain water future, from decreasing water supplies and more intense droughts to periodic flooding and water quality impairments. Austin is addressing these challenges head on, from investments in water efficiency and water reuse to rainwater harvesting and stormwater management. These investments present a significant opportunity to support not only water, but to provide economic, social, and environmental benefits. By considering these co-benefits, water managers can increase funding through collaborative partnerships and co-funding opportunities, build partnerships, and garner public support.

For this case study, the Pacific Institute collaborated with the City of Austin, Texas, National Wildlife Federation, and Texas Water Trade to scale green stormwater infrastructure on residential properties in Austin. Using the Pacific Institute’s “multi-benefit framework,” the authors evaluated the multiple benefits and beneficiaries of these projects and opportunities to co-fund these investments. The framework outlines a process for engaging with stakeholders to systematically evaluate and incorporate the broad benefits and trade-offs of water management options into decision-making.

The experience of Austin can be used by other cities around the United States as they incorporate their own co-benefits into their water management projects.

In this Series

Incorporating Multiple Benefits into Water Projects: A Guide for Water Managers

Resources

Webpage: A Multi-Benefit Approach to Water Management

Resource Library: Multi-Benefit Resource Library

April 7, 2020March 13, 2021

Stormwater Capture is Undervalued in California

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By Sarah Diringer

The rain barrels at my house are full – 110 gallons of rain stored to water the garden when we enter the dry season. And, this is only a small fraction of the stormwater being stored throughout California and the western U.S. Across the region, communities, water agencies, and others are catching millions of gallons of stormwater to store for the drier months.

Stormwater management in Austin, Texas, incorporating both grey and green infrastructure – concrete and nature.

Stormwater is the rain and other water that runs off of streets and sidewalks into nearby gutters or waterways. Communities throughout the western U.S. are expanding efforts to collect this valuable water resource. These projects range from capturing water from a single rooftop or driveway to developing large infiltration basins that recharge billions of gallons of water each year in groundwater basins.

In addition to providing additional water supply, many stormwater capture projects provide “multiple benefits,” such as managing floods or restoring ecosystems. When these co-benefits are considered, then stormwater capture looks even more valuable.

The Pacific Institute recently published two open-access articles that examine stormwater capture projects in California to better understand how much these projects cost, as well as what kinds of benefits they provide: “Economic evaluation of stormwater capture and its multiple benefits in California” and “The cost of alternative urban water supply and efficiency options in California.” These articles focus on data from California, but the learnings are applicable far beyond the state.

Stormwater Capture is Economically Feasible
Stormwater capture is a cost-effective option for supplying water to communities, especially when compared to other traditional water supplies. Based on our research, stormwater capture has a median cost between $0.48 and $1.23 per m³of water, compared to wastewater reuse, which has a median cost of $1.25 per m³ of water, or seawater desalination, which has a median cost between $1.72 and $2.29 per m³ of water.

In addition to efficiency measures, stormwater capture presents a low cost option for new water supplies. From Cooley et al. 2019.

Economic Analyses Can Incorporate More Benefits
Stormwater capture can provide communities with additional benefits that aren’t commonly considered in economic analyses. These include flood control, restored habitat, energy savings, and recreational opportunities. But these additional benefits are not always included in economic analyses, and this means stormwater capture is an underappreciated option for water supply.

In a study of 26 urban stormwater capture projects in California, the median cost-benefit of projects decreased by more than 85% when incorporating at least one additional benefit, reducing the median costs from $0.84 per m³ to $0.12 m³ of water. For some projects, the additional benefits far outweighed the cost of the project.

Reported benefits of stormwater capture projects in California. These benefits can help build partnerships among agencies that are interested in achieving these outcomes.

Incorporating Multiple Benefits Can Help Develop Partnerships and New Funding
Including co-benefits of projects can help with more than just improving the economic outlook. Multiple benefits can help water managers develop partnerships among agencies and encourage additional funding. For example, our research found that of stormwater projects we examined, one in three provided more benefit to a secondary goal than the primary reason for building the project. While stormwater is notoriously underfunded, we can help increase public and private investments by building partnerships and capitalizing on the multiple benefits.

What You Can Do
While these reports focused on stormwater capture in California, this resource can serve as an important alternative supply throughout the world.

Learn About It: If you’re interested in learning more about stormwater capture and seeing these projects in your own community, reach out to your local water or flood control agency to learn more about efforts to sustainably manage stormwater in your own community.

Install It: If you’re interested in installing green infrastructure in your own yard, find out if an agency in your region will provide a rebate for converting your landscape or installing green infrastructure. These might be provided by your water agency, municipality, or other regional entity.

Incorporate It: If you’re a water manager interested in incorporating multiple benefits into water management decisions, explore the Pacific Institute’s multi-benefit approach to water management and consider how to understanding the full costs and benefits can help with your decision making.

Scale It: And finally, if you want to see sustainable stormwater capture expand in cities throughout the world, encourage your local agencies to consider innovative, stormwater management projects that can provide multiple benefits, including improving water quality, increasing urban green space, and recharging groundwater basins.

Economic Evaluation of Stormwater Capture and Its Multiple Benefits in California

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Urban stormwater is becoming an increasingly important alternative water supply in California. However, current economic analyses do not adequately evaluate co-benefits provided by different stormwater investments. As a result, urban stormwater capture is undervalued. This research from the Pacific Institute demonstrates that urban stormwater capture investments may be more economically feasible than expected, especially when capitalizing on economies of scale and incorporating co-benefits of projects. Pacific Institute researchers examined the levelized cost of water for 50 proposed stormwater capture projects in California, characterizing the projects by water source, process, and water supply yield. In addition, the authors incorporated co-benefits of projects into the analysis to examine the net benefit of proposed projects. The article demonstrates that for projects that reported even a limited number of additional benefits, the net levelized cost of urban stormwater capture decreased by 85%, with some of the projects demonstrating a net benefit. Thus, scaling urban stormwater capture projects to capitalize on economies of scale and incorporating co-benefits of projects can dramatically improve the economic feasibility of these projects. Learn more and download the article here.

Resources

Excel Spreadsheet: Supporting Information and Data for Economic Evaluation of Stormwater Capture and Its Multiple Benefits in California