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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Published: June 2014
Increased pressures on California’s water supply, including from population growth and intense periods of drought exacerbated by climate change, are leading to the overuse of surface water and groundwater.
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Published: June 2014
California has a large and growing gap between the amount of water available and the amount that people use.
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Published: June 2014
Some NGOs and academics argue that business water management strategies can subvert the public interest in favor of corporate profit.
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Published: June 2014
Water reuse provides a reliable, local water supply that reduces vulnerability to extreme conditions.
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Published: June 2014
California’s water supply is taxed by challenges such as drought, unsustainable groundwater use, and tensions over limited resources for a growing population.
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Published: June 2014
Drought in California poses a serious threat to water resources in communities across the state. The continued effects of climate change will likely exacerbate periods of drought, rendering California’s current urban and suburban water supplies unreliable and insufficient.
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Published: June 2014
California’s agricultural production is the largest in the United States, and uses about 80 percent of the state’s developed water supply.
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Published: May 2014
This foto-novela, available in both English and Spanish, came out of the Youth Empowerment Zone Project of the Pacific Institute and Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ).
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Published: April 2014
In an attempt to gain insight into corporate perceptions of risks associated with water issues and plans to address these challenges, in 2013 and 2014 the Pacific Institute and VOX Global surveyed over 50 companies across industry sectors, the majority Fortune 500 and publicly traded.
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Published: February 2014
Peter Gleick testified on February 26, 2014 on strategies for addressing the California drought to the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) to
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Published: January 2014
The eighth volume in this highly regarded series, The World’s Water, Volume 8 features chapters on hydraulic fracturing (fracking), water footprints, sustainable water jobs, and desalination financing, among other timely issues. Water briefs provide concise updates on topics including the Dead Sea and the role of water in the Syrian conflict.
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Published: December 2013
As a dry December accentuates the stress on California’s limited water supplies, the success of the state’s energy sector in implementing efficiency programs offers valuable lessons to the water sector.
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Published: December 2013
As competition for freshwater resources heightens across the globe, the prospect of using technology to turn unusable seawater into an unending resource is a tempting fix. While seawater desalination is one potential solution to the need for alternative sources of freshwater, more research is needed to understand the impacts of desalination on marine life.
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Published: November 2013
California’s social and economic well-being is directly tied to financing for reliable, sustainable water. This study from the Pacific Institute explores stable and sustainable sources of funding for water projects as a key to long-term solutions, and finds California’s increased dependence on general obligation (GO) bonds in funding water systems is unreliable and costly to both the state and taxpayers.
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Published: September 2013
Effective collective action is the key to approaching shared water risk successfully. The UN Global Compact’s CEO Water Mandate initiative — which the Pacific Institute is co-secretariat for — released this guide in 2013 in order to provide a step-by-step guide to water resource-related collective action.
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Published: September 2013
Energy and water utilities face fiscal challenges related to declining per-capita demand, as well as mandates for continued reductions in consumption. This study examines a range of electricity pricing practices and policies that California electric utilities have used to remain financially stable as per-capita demand decreased.
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Published: September 2013
All forms of energy, from hydropower to solar panels, use water. Likewise, water supply, treatment, use, and disposal all use considerable amounts of energy. Coordinating water-energy efficiency efforts provides a significant opportunity to achieve greater savings for both water and energy utilities and for their customers.
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Published: August 2013
Twenty-four of California’s agricultural water districts have submitted agricultural water management plans, leaving 55 districts out of compliance with the requirement of the Water Conservation Act of 2009, according to a new joint analysis issued today by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Pacific Institute. This represents a 30% compliance rate, meaning there is much work to be done to ensure sustainable water management for the state.
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Published: August 2013
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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