The Untapped Potential of California’s Water Supply: Efficiency, Reuse, and Stormwater – Issue Brief
Overview
Resources
In this Series
Issue Brief: Urban Water Conservation and Efficiency Potential in California
Issue Brief: Stormwater Capture Potential in Urban and Suburban California
Issue Brief: Water Reuse Potential in California
Fact Sheet: A Sustainable Water Future for California
Related:
Stacked Incentives: Co-Funding Water Customer Incentive Programs
Water utilities throughout the US offer customer incentives, such as rebates and technical assistance, to motivate action and foster engagement with their customers. In addition to providing water-related benefits, many of these programs generate additional co-benefits, such as reducing energy required for heating water or increasing carbon sequestration in landscapes. These co-benefits present water utilities with an opportunity to build collaborative partnerships and co-funding for customer incentive programs through stacked incentives.
At Risk: Public Supply Well Vulnerability Under California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act
Community water systems in California’s San Joaquin Valley face a host of challenges that threaten the safety and reliability of drinking water, including pollution, periodic drought, and chronic groundwater overdraft. Moreover, shallow wells, some of which serve community water systems, are vulnerable to short-term and chronic declines in groundwater levels. For example, during the 2012-2016 drought, many domestic wells and some public supply wells went dry.
The Impacts of the Pandemic Remain for Small Water Systems and Customers In-Debt
In the U.S., the vital responsibility of continuing safe water supply during the pandemic is decentralized, spread among nearly 50,000 community water systems. More than 45,000 of these are small community water systems (SCWS), serving fewer than 10,000 people each. Together, SCWS provide water to more than 53 million people — 18 percent of the national population — across urban and rural areas, on tribal reservations, in the midst of larger utilities in huge metropolises, and in growing communities.
Customer Debt and Declining Revenues: The Financial Impacts of COVID-19 on Small Community Water Systems
More than 45,000 small community water systems exist in the United States. These small community water systems, defined as those serving fewer than 10,000 people, are distributed across the country. Altogether they serve 53 million people across rural and urban settings, on Tribal reservations, in the midst of huge metropolises, and in growing communities.
What Role Should Onsite Water Reuse Play in Silicon Valley Water?
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.
