More reliable water supplies for California: Building a diverse regional water supply portfolio

New resource page at Maven’s Notebook highlights the factors impacting California’s water supply and the range of solutions for developing reliable water supplies

California has recently emerged from a severe drought, one of the worst droughts in modern times; the drought was essentially ended with the wettest year on record.  For those familiar with California water and the state’s boom and bust weather cycles, it was no surprise.  But for the general public, it certainly brought California’s water issues to the front of mind as nothing seems to focus the public’s attention on the state’s water resources like the extremes of flood and drought.

The middle of a crisis is generally not the best time to make major infrastructure changes; As President John Kennedy said in his 1962 State of the Union Address, the time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining. So what steps can we take, now that the sun is shining?

Most (if not all) agree that the state’s water management system is currently unable to meet both human an ecological needs, too exposed to floods, droughts and natural disasters, and inadequate to handle the additional pressures of future population growth and climate change. While there is no silver bullet solution, the good news is that there area number of tools in toolbox that a region or locality can use to ensure their water supply reliability; the key is to build a diverse portfolio of water supplies that minimizes potential impacts and increases supply reliability under a variety of operational and hydrologic conditions.

What are the factors impacting California’s water supplies, and what are the possible solutions for creating a resilient, reliable water supply?  A new page at Maven’s Notebook highlights the problems, and most importantly, the range of solutions available.

Click here for the page: More reliable water supplies for California: Building a diverse regional water supply portfolio

Daily emailsSign up for daily email service and you’ll never miss a post!

Sign up for daily emails and get all the Notebook’s aggregated and original water news content delivered to your email box by 9AM. Breaking news alerts, too. Sign me up!

Print Friendly, PDF & Email