Water and California's Climate Adaptation Strategy

In the final California Climate Adaptation Strategy released yesterday, the state predicts a drier future for the Golden State.  This news comes at a sobering time -- California has already experienced three dry years, reducing water supplies and further harming the state's salmon runs.

When most people think about climate change and water, they tend to think first about the projected loss of snowpack.  But this report places an emphasis on what may be a more important implication of global warming - a reduction in the total amount of water available for the state.  This reduction comes from several causes - a predicted decrease in precipitation, increased evaporation, changes in runoff timing, and increased plant consumption.  This report reinforces the case that California has hit Peak Water in terms of the amount we should expect to squeeze from our overtaxed rivers.

The report also reinforces the need for California to emphasize the tools that we have called the Virtual River to meet future water needs, such as the state's recently passed water conservation bill.   In coming years, we will need to look for additional opportunities to increase the amount of water gained from agricultural and urban water conservation, water recycling, groundwater clean-up and management, and urban stormwater capture.  We used to call these "alternative" supplies, but we need to change the language we use to describe these tolls.  This document shows that these will be the backbone water supply strategies in the 21st century.

In Australia and the Colorado River basin, droughts have been so extended that many in the water community have started moving away from the term "drought" and toward thinking of drier conditions as "the new normal."  It may be too early for that in California, as even the Farm Bureau is predicting a wet, or at least normal, winter in California, as a result of El Nino conditions in the ocean.  Nevertheless, this report suggests a clear direction for decision-makers and water managers.  We should not think of dry years as a short-term phenomenon to be forgotten after the first heavy rains.  We need to plan seriously for a drier future.

The report has plenty of additional food for thought on water issues.  I'll mention just one more item.  The state recommends a serious investigation of opportunities to "reintroduce anadromous fish to upper watersheds"  (Strategy 5(c).)  Salmon in the Bay-Delta system have lost as much as 95 percent of their historic spawning habitat - locked behind massive dams. For years, fisheries advocates have looked for ways to get salmon to the cool spawning habitat above dams like Shasta, Englebright, Oroville, Folsom and others.  In the past, some of these proposals haven't gained much traction.  Given the plight of the state's salmon industry and the projections of climate change impacts in this report, this is an idea whose time may have come.  Kudos to the state for including this adaptation strategy.