California Department of Water Resources

Ringside: Tips to Understand Our Convoluted Yet Obligatory Units of Water

August 21, 2025 2:55 amAugust 21, 2025 6:39 am

Those of us following water politics and the water industry have become familiar with the most common units of water volume and water flow. Professionals in the industry make constant use of terms, often reduced to acronyms, forgetting that the...

Ringside: The Grand Water Bargain

June 26, 2025 3:05 amJune 26, 2025 3:06 am

For the last few decades in California, the conventional wisdom has been that farmers and urban water consumers have to improve efficiency and reduce consumption. To the fullest extent possible, rain and snow falling on watersheds must proceed unimpaired from...

Ringside: How to Add 10 Million Acre Feet Per Year to California’s Water Supply

April 30, 2025 3:52 pmApril 30, 2025 3:52 pm

There is a good chance that a Californian is going to be nominated to become the new Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. One source of opposition to his confirmation could be senators representing states that share with California the...

Ringside: Quantifying the Variables that Determine Our Prosperity

March 27, 2025 7:00 amMarch 27, 2025 7:18 am

It is nearly impossible to read a policy document on the topic of energy or water that won’t make frequent references to carbon. In California, the race to achieve a “carbon neutral” economy by 2045 has spawned a carbon accounting...

Ringside: Desalination at Scale is Cost Competitive

March 13, 2025 3:30 amMarch 13, 2025 3:31 am

On May 22, 2022, the California Coastal Commission voted unanimously to deny final approval for a desalination plant in Huntington Beach. It would have produced 56,000 acre feet of fresh water per year, and would have been privately financed. To...

California Department of Water Resources Predicts A Dry 2025

December 7, 2024 9:25 amDecember 7, 2024 9:26 am

The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) predicted earlier this week that California will face a mostly dry 2025, with major storms expected in the first few and last few months of the year. Since the late 2010’s, California has...

The Food on Your Table is Literally at Stake

August 24, 2024 3:05 amAugust 24, 2024 9:45 am

The unintended consequences of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) continue to reverberate across the Central Valley. On Tuesday, August 20, 2024 there was a court hearing at the Kings County Superior Court that further tested the reach of state...