A big focus of my reporting on western water right now is process. It’s clear we have supply-demand imbalances. What are the processes by which we’ll respond? What successes have we had to date in creating institutional arrangements that can reduce use in response, and where and how have we failed (are we failing) to …
Continue reading ‘On the importance of stakeholder communication and buy-in’ »
USGS researcher Mike Dettinger, whose paper on “atmospheric rivers” (ARs) and climate variability in California I highlighted over the weekend, has a new paper in the June Journal of the American Water Resources Association looking at how climate change might influence the phenomenon in the future. AR’s dominate California’s precipitation (and water supply) delivering a …
Continue reading ‘Increased flood risk in California under climate change’ »
Oregon water doc and NRC Bay-Delta panel member today offers Californians some unsolicited advice: Memo to California: Regulate groundwater withdrawals on a statewide basis.
John McChesney has posted a great interview with Pat Mulroy, head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, about future directions for Colorado River management. She’s the most vocal proponent for mechanisms that might allow sharing of shortages among water users across the Colorado River basin, rather than a strict prior appropriation approach where junior users …
Continue reading ‘Mulroy: We don’t need to tear up the compact’ »
We’ve received 2.15 inches (5.46 cm) of precipitation since Oct. 1 (the “water year”) at the Heineman-Fleck house in Albuquerque. That’s 44 percent of average for the first 8 months of the water year. (My average is based on data going back to the 1999-2000 water year.) A sidelight: 1.41 inches of that (3.58 cm) …
Part of my standard schtick when I talk about water management in the arid southwest is an explanation of the problem of variability as it relates to aridity. It is so obvious that it almost goes without saying that life in an arid climate poses climate problems because it’s dry. But the more subtle problem, …
Continue reading ‘California and the Problem of Variability in Water Management’ »
Mark Reisner, in Cadillac Desert, describes Jerry Brown’s struggle back in the late 1970s and early ’80s to sort out the conflicting interests surrounding the Bay-Delta System as plans were developed for what was then known as the Peripheral Canal: Jerry Brown’s dilemma – which was insoluble, but which he thought he could solve anyway …
Here’s one of those societal water value questions that doesn’t get a lot of attention. How cool are massive waterfalls? “Breathtaking, that’s what it is,” said Lynne Bousie of Scotland, who stopped to pose for a photograph at the spot where the paved trail to Yosemite Falls makes a turn and the first full view …
One of the strangest western water projects of recent years is the Drop 2 Reservoir on the All-American Canal. Here’s the problem. Irrigators in southeastern California, mostly in the Imperial Valley, get their water from the Colorado River. It sits in storage behind Lake Mead, and when they need it, they put in a request …
Environmental economists talk about the relationship between affluence and environmental values – the idea that a society’s desire for things like clean air and water are low when folks are poor, but as basic needs for food and shelter are satisfied, environmental desires rise. It’s captured notionally in the “Environmental Kuznets Curve”. It’s not a …
Continue reading ‘Three Gorges: Spanning the Environmental Kuznets Curve’ »