Published: January 2019
This comment letter sent to Phil Rosentrater, Executive Director of the Salton Sea Authority, on behalf of Alianza Coachella Valley, Audubon California, Defenders of Wildlife, Environmental Defense Fund, Kounkuey Design Initiative, the Pacific Institute, and Sierra Club California discusses the proposed North Lake Project at the Salton Sea.
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Published: October 2018
When a person fails to pay their water utility bill, their water service can be disconnected. Lack of water in the home compromises health, and renders housing legally uninhabitable and untenantable. Shutoffs also pose a financial burden; in addition to the original debt, there are usually fees associated with late payment, notice of an impending shutoff, and service reconnection.
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Published: September 2018
In 2012, California’s Human Right to Water was passed, calling for safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water for all citizens. Yet while this statute has served as the touchstone for drinking water and sanitation efforts in the state, access to this basic right remains unrealized in many California communities.
Published: August 2018
This issue brief summarizes the current understanding of water and security threats and their links to conflict, migration, and food insecurity.
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Published: August 2018
Per capita water use in the United States has fallen by more than 40% since the 1970s. In some areas, reductions in per capita water use have offset continued population and economic growth, such that total water use has remained constant or even declined.
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Published: June 2018
Stormwater has traditionally been managed to mitigate flooding and protect water quality. However, its potential as a local water supply has gained recent attention in water-stressed areas. As climate change increases the risk of both floods and droughts in California, urban stormwater capture also offers a significant opportunity to enhance community resilience.
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Published: April 2018
In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly recognized the human right to water and sanitation. Two years later, in 2012, California became the first state in the nation to enact legislation recognizing the human right to water for consumption, cooking, and sanitary purposes.
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Published: February 2018
The newest volume in this highly regarded series, The World’s Water, Volume 9 continues to offer insights into critical global water problems, overviews of data and analysis around water use and management, and case studies of some of the greatest water challenges around the world.
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Published: February 2018
Cape Town is parched. Severe drought and high water use have collided in South Africa’s second largest city, and unless the drought breaks, residents may run out of water in the next few months when there simply isn’t enough water left to supply the drinking water taps.
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Published: February 2018
After more than three years of severe drought, Cape Town, a city of nearly 4 million people, is running out of water. “Day Zero”—the day city officials estimate the water system will be unable to provide drinking water for the taps—is less than three months away, and substantial rains are not expected before then.
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Published: August 2017
This comment letter to the California State Water Resources Control Board (Water Board) was sent in response to the proposed Low Income Rate Assistance (LIRA) program implementation scenarios prepared pursuant to AB 401 (Dodd, 2015).
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Published: August 2017
This report recognizes the need for successful corporate water stewardship to encompass sustainable access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) for workers in company supply chains, and offers steps for companies to take to help end the global water and sanitation crisis.
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Published: June 2017
While winter rains have refilled California reservoirs and dumped near-record snow on the mountains, communities across the state are wisely seeking ways reduce their vulnerability to future droughts. One option some are considering is seawater desalination.
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Published: April 2017
The severe five-year drought afflicting California from 2012 to 2016 was the driest and hottest in the instrumental record. This report is a comprehensive assessment of the costs to California of lost hydroelectricity during the five years of drought.
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Published: April 2017
As of 2017, more companies than ever before were setting water targets, yet global water stress continued to rise. How can companies ensure that their water targets align with meaningful outcomes? This report calls for a new approach for setting meaningful corporate water targets that take into account the unique local contexts of the basins in which companies operate.
Published: February 2017
Concerns over drinking water quality and possible disease transmission, as well as widely-publicized water contamination incidents, have contributed to a decline in the number of publicly available water fountains.
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Published: January 2017
California’s Salton Sea is an ecosystem facing large systemic changes in the near future.
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Published: January 2017
California’s climate is prone to prolonged periods of drought that are exacerbated by the effects of climate change.
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Published: November 2016
This document identifies major water-related challenges facing the United States and offers explicit recommendations for strategies the next administration and Congress should pursue, domestically and internationally.
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Published: October 2016
This report is the first comparative analysis of water supply and demand management strategies for localities in the State of California.
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Published: October 2016
Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) have emerged in the past two decades as standards specifying requirements relating to a wide range of sustainability metrics, including respect for human rights, workers’ health and safety, decent income, environmental degradation, and others.
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Published: September 2016
Despite being the United States’ most arid region, the US Southwest – Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah – is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. Yet nearly 75% of total cropland in the region, and an even higher percentage of total agricultural productivity, depends on supplemental irrigation.
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Published: August 2016
A Community Guide for Evaluating Future Urban Water Demand provides communities, environmental groups, ratepayer advocates, and anyone interested in sustainable water supply planning with the knowledge and tools they need to understand water demand forecasts.
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Published: June 2016
The most severe drought in California on the instrumental record stretched from 2012-2016. The drought was highly publicized, with particular attention paid towards impacts on agriculture, urban areas, and ecosystems. Little attention, however, was paid to the drought’s impacts on California’s low-income communities.
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Published: March 2016
California has a long list of unresolved and difficult water challenges, made more urgent by periods of severe drought that are exacerbated by climate change.
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Published: February 2016
A new report released today shows that strategies developed and mistakes made during Australia’s decade-long Millennium Drought provide a powerful resource for California, as the state enters its fifth year of severe drought.
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Published: February 2016
Realizado pela Alliance for Water Efficiency (Chicago, EUA), pelo Institute for Sustainable Futures, da Universidade de Tecnologia de Sidney (Sidney, AUS) e pelo think tank Pacific Institute, ”Managing the Drought” busca identificar as estratégias que as companhias de águas urbanas e agências de águas da Austrália adotaram para sobreviver à pior seca já registrada em sua história – a ”Seca do Milênio”, que durou de 1997 até seu término oficial, em 2012.
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Published: February 2016
Hydropower and natural gas are the principal sources of electricity for California’s millions of users.
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Published: February 2016
Freshwater is perhaps the single most precious resource for human health and development.
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Published: December 2015
Oil, gas, and agriculture are all central to California’s economy. Yet the extent of harmful chemical contamination from the oil and gas industry on food production is not well documented, and there are mounting concerns over human health impacts. This study sheds light on the risks posed when oil and gas production and exploration operate alongside agriculture.
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Published: September 2015
The adoption of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), at the 2015 United Nations Development Summit, lays out a compelling framework for collective action by government, the private sector, and civil society to address social and environmental issues that inhibit economic development and shared prosperity.
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Published: August 2015
In 2015, California was in the midst of the most severe drought in nearly 120 years of instrumental record, with far-reaching effects in the state. This report examines the impacts of the drought on California’s agricultural sector through 2014.
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Published: August 2015
Today, the UN Global Compact’s CEO Water Mandate announced the first comprehensive guide on forming multi-stakeholder water stewardship initiatives with integrity.
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Published: July 2015
This study, prepared by the California Council on Science and Technology in partnership with the Pacific Institute and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, consists of three volumes. It explores well stimulation treatments in California; the risks these technologies pose to water, air, seismic activity, wildlife, plants, and human health; risks by geographic region within the state; and areas where there are information gaps.
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Published: April 2015
California is a key producer of agricultural goods that are consumed all over the world.
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Published: April 2015
This comment letters sent to the California State Water Resources Control Board (Water Board) urged the Water Board to direct the Salton Sea Management Program to review and act upon previous recommendations and suggestions, as well as those described in the letter, and to accelerate efforts on behalf of California’s Salton Sea and the people and wildlife who depend on it.
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Published: April 2015
This report analyzes and explains the factors contributing to the positive trend of decreasing water use, and examines the implications for future water demand. National water use remains high, and many freshwater systems are under stress from overuse. Climate change will exacerbate existing challenges, affecting the supply, demand, and quality of the nation’s water resources.
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Published: March 2015
California’s hottest and driest drought in recorded history, from 2012 to 2016, shifted the sources of energy for electricity with adverse economic and environmental consequences. This report focuses on the period of drought from 2011 to 2014.
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Published: March 2015
A new article by Julian Fulton and Heather Cooley evaluates the amount of water consumed in meeting California’s energy needs – also referred to as the water footprint of energy.
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Published: January 2015
In 2007, the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) was created as a strategic policy initiative for businesses committed to aligning their operations and strategies with 10 principles related to human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption.
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Published: January 2015
This web app from the Pacific Institute shows how different California cities are responding to the ongoing drought. This web feature brings to life newly-released data on residential and system-wide water use, and allows users to explore trends and patterns in that use.
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Published: October 2014
This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Proposition 1, the Water Quality, Supply and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014, which was approved by California voters in November 2014.
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Published: September 2014
The UN Global Compact’s CEO Water Mandate initiative has released the finalized Corporate Water Disclosure Guidelines – a common approach for companies to effectively and intelligibly disclose the many elements of their corporate water management practice to key stakeholders. The Guidelines are available as a PDF report and web-based tool.
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Published: September 2014
On September 25, 2014, Pacific Institute Water Program Director Heather Cooley testified before the Assembly Select Committee on Coastal Protection. Heather spoke separately on desalination intakes and broader policy issues of desalination facilities.
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Published: September 2014
This fact sheet examines the effectiveness of water metering as a tool to reduce excessive or wasteful water use by both utility companies and customers.
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Published: September 2014
The “water footprint” -- the amount of freshwater used both directly and indirectly throughout the production chain of a good or service -- has emerged as a valuable tool to evaluate the impact of human activity on the world’s water resources.
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Published: September 2014
California’s Salton Sea threatens to impose massive public health and environmental costs if no action is taken to alter its decline.
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Published: September 2014
As society seeks to meet demands for goods and services for a growing population, it is important to improve understanding of the fundamental science of the hydrological cycle, its links with related global processes, and the role it plays in ecological and societal well-being.
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Published: July 2014
California farmers have made progress in updating and modernizing irrigation practices, but great untapped potential remains to use water more efficiently.
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Published: June 2014
California has reached “peak water.” We’ve far exceeded the limits of our renewable and sustainable supply. The current severe drought has highlighted these limits and shown us the stark reality of a water system in need of new thinking, new strategies and new answers.
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