Archive of posts filed under the cawater category.

Increased flood risk in California under climate change

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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 …

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Mulroy: We don’t need to tear up the compact

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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 …

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California and the Problem of Variability in Water Management

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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, …

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Co-Equal Goals

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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 …

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The Water Pricing Dilemma

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Janet Zimmerman in the Riverside (Calif.) Press Enterprise on what happens to water agencies when their customers use less: Water use has dropped by double digits across Southern California as residents heeded the call to conserve. As a result, water district revenues fell drastically. Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the wholesaler that supplies most …

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Why Some NM Schlub Cares About the Sacramento Delta

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I’ve triggered some puzzlement among California water folks as I call around trying to understand the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in preparation for my trip out there next month. Why does a New Mexican care? Other than the fact that it’s fascinating, of course. I mean what water wonk wouldn’t be fascinated by California’s water problems. …

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