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blog post

Recycled Drinking Water: The Next Frontier

By Lori Pottinger

California is poised to become an early adopter of the direct reuse of purified wastewater. An expert interview on this potential new drinking water source.

blog post

Making Homes More Water Efficient

By Lori Pottinger

An expert interview on how California could save billions of gallons a year if older homes were as water efficient as newer ones.

blog post

A Changing State of Water Conservation

By Lori Pottinger

The state continues to learn from the latest drought--an expert interview with Fran Spivy-Weber of the California State Water Board.

blog post

Video: Water and Growth in the West

By Ellen Hanak

When water supplies are tight, the question of whether government should limit growth rises to the surface. Ellen Hanak discusses the issue at a conference on water sustainability in the West.

blog post

Water Management’s High-Tech Future

By Lori Pottinger

California’s urban water managers face some daunting challenges. We explore cutting edge advances to improve how cities manage water in an interview with Newsha Ajami.

Report

What If California’s Drought Continues?

By Ellen Hanak, Jay Lund, Jeffrey Mount, Peter Moyle ...

California is in the fourth year of a severe, hot drought—the kind that is increasingly likely as the climate warms. Although no sector has been untouched, impacts so far have varied greatly, reflecting different levels of drought preparedness. Urban areas are in the best shape, thanks to sustained investments in diversified water portfolios and conservation. Farmers are more vulnerable, but they are also adapting. The greatest vulnerabilities are in some low-income rural communities where wells are running dry and in California’s wetlands, rivers, and forests, where the state’s iconic biodiversity is under extreme threat. Two to three more years of drought will increase challenges in all areas and require continued—and likely increasingly difficult—adaptations. Emergency programs will need to be significantly expanded to get drinking water to rural residents and to prevent major losses of waterbirds and extinctions of numerous native fish species, including most salmon runs. California also needs to start a longer-term effort to build drought resilience in the most vulnerable areas.

blog post

Central Coast a Microcosm of State Water Challenges

By Lori Pottinger

Water challenges around the state are in many ways place-specific, but the Central Coast offers some lessons for addressing dwindling water supply in times of drought. An interview with Richard Frank.

blog post

Proposed Reservoirs Are No Panacea for Drought

By Ellen Hanak, Jeffrey Mount

New surface storage would add only modestly to the state’s water supply. Building drought resilience requires a much broader set of actions.

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