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Video: Policy Priorities for California’s Water

By Lori Pottinger

Expert panels discuss four key water challenges: urban drought resilience, groundwater, declining ecosystem health, and safe drinking water in disadvantaged communities.

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

Public Preschools Support Education, Work

By Caroline Danielson, Monica Bandy

As policymakers discuss California’s system of early childhood care and education, it is useful to look more closely at the families who use it—or might like to.

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

California’s Renters in the Dark on Drought Targets

By Dean Bonner, Caitrin Chappelle

Most Californians don’t know the details of the state’s mandatory water conservation requirements, but homeowners are twice as likely than renters to know how much they have to cut back.

blog post

Drought Watch: The End of the Rainy Season

By Ellen Hanak, Jay Lund, Jeffrey Mount

Managing this drought will be difficult, even painful in some regions, but the state is not going to run out of water.

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