This commentary was published in the Sacramento Bee on April 13, 2017.
Governor Jerry Brown has declared the drought over. What did we learn over five years of drought that that could help us better manage the next one? The drought brought some hard lessons and gave us a glimpse into a challenging future. Record warm temperatures—comparable to those predicted by many climate scientists for later this century—made drought management harder. Improving drought resilience in this increasingly challenging climate will require a number of policy improvements. These six policy changes could help.