Tag: water marketing

Drought Watch: Video Seminars

This is part of a continuing series on the impact of the drought.

A series of videos available online is a great resource for water wonks and newcomers alike. Researchers and cooperative extension specialists from the University of California’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, with support from the California Department of Water Resources, have put together these video seminars on drought-related water management issues. You can bone up on topics ranging from drought impacts on wildlife and groundwater basins, to the latest research on California’s climate in centuries past (and the mega-drought we experienced in medieval times), to tips for managing crops and rangeland when water is in short supply.

I contributed to the series with an overview of how water marketing and groundwater banking can help mitigate the worst economic impacts of droughts, drawing on PPIC’s ongoing research on this issue. The series is being updated regularly with new videos.

Allow Water Rights Trading

This commentary was published by the New York Times on June 29, 2014, in a discussion of The Water Crisis in the West.

We have an outdated water rights system in the American West: Water goes to those who claimed it first, whether or not they are putting it to the best use.

This system originated out of practicality. The climate in the West is dry for much of the year, and with Western rivers few and far between, it’s often necessary to invest in storage and conveyance to get water to where it is needed. But the rights to use water were allocated many decades ago, when the region had far fewer people, and before it was widely recognized that the system often short-changed the environment. …

Continue reading on nytimes.com.

Drought Watch: A Better Way to Manage Water for Fish

This is part of a continuing series on the impact of the drought.

As California’s drought wears on, state and federal regulators will be under increasing pressure to loosen environmental standards that protect native fish and other wildlife. Relaxing flow standards in rivers and streams is always problematic; the standards exist because many native species are already in a precarious condition. But during droughts, regulators often make this decision as part of a balancing act, in order to make additional water available to cities and farms. Usually, the standards are relaxed without requiring any payment from cities or growers for the added water they receive. Yet the environmental consequences of relaxing standards can be costly, requiring special efforts to protect and recover species in other ways—such as with conservation hatcheries that help maintain populations of endangered species outside of their natural environment.

In a recent op ed in the Sacramento Bee, we joined a group of researchers from UC Davis, UC Hastings, and Stanford University to propose a new way for California to approach this challenge. The basic idea: instead of giving the water away, California should create a special environmental water market to sell to growers and cities the water made available by relaxing environmental standards. The revenues would be used to support fish and wildlife recovery. This special environmental market would be an extension of the water trading that already happens during droughts. It would help meet California’s goals of both ensuring reliable water supplies and protecting the environment, even during the dry times.

Drought Watch: Lessons from the Past

This is part of a continuing series on the impact of the drought.

As California’s drought crisis unfolds, there will be calls from many quarters for extraordinary actions to help reduce the economic and social costs to communities and sectors at risk. California’s leaders in Sacramento, Washington, D.C., and around the state will need to weigh the pressure to act against the risk of making snap decisions that provide short-term relief yet have much higher long-term costs. As I describe in a commentary for the San Francisco Chronicle – written with PPIC adjunct fellow and UC Davis Professor Jay Lund – water agencies have fallen into this trap when responding to some past droughts. For instance, excessive pumping from the Delta during the 1987–92 drought contributed to the establishment of some invasive species that have plagued management of this system ever since.

Fortunately, there are also positive lessons from past droughts that can help guide today’s actions. One is that a water market – which allows those with relatively ample supplies to lease water to those who don’t – can significantly reduce costs to cities, farms, and the environment. The governor has called for steps to make this kind of trading easier. Another lesson is that communities that diversify their supply sources and establish stronger linkages with neighboring water systems are better able to weather droughts. Parts of the state that are out ahead on this – including Southern California and much of the Bay Area – are in better shape today thanks to these investment.

Beyond the Drought: 10 Big Changes Ahead for California Water

These days, all water news in California is focused on the weather. After two successive dry years, this year’s rainy season has yet to make a decent showing. Unless the skies open soon, the state seems firmly headed for a major drought, with serious implications for the farm economy, some water-scarce communities, and the fish and other species that depend on our rivers and streams.

Periodic droughts are inevitable in California, given the state’s highly variable climate, and many scientists expect such extreme events to become more frequent with climate change. An essential part of water management in California is preparing for this inevitability—with multi-pronged strategies that include water marketing, groundwater banking, conservation, and investment in non-traditional supplies like recycled wastewater. Each drought provides an opportunity to get better at stretching scarce supplies and reducing the economic hardship caused by water scarcity, as PPIC’s California Water Myths report points out.

I recently wrote a piece—with Jay Lund, PPIC adjunct fellow and UC Davis professor—for the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences’ California WaterBlog that highlights 10 other inevitable changes in store for California water. These changes range from vulnerable levees and uncertain water supply conditions in the Delta to deteriorating groundwater basins to the shrinking Salton Sea. To minimize hardship and disruption, most of the items on our top 10 list will—like droughts—require significant preparation and planning. This is often hard to do, given the tradeoffs and costs of most water management solutions. But we think that preparation is the best way to reduce the pain and develop a water policy that supports the kind of state Californians want, rather than wishfully thinking that California can avoid change.