Water Resources

On a drought-parched piece of land in California's Central Valley, farmer Don Cameron has persuaded other growers to do something counterintuitive. Flood their farms. "I think you could put millions of acre feet back into the ground," said Cameron, who grows everything from almonds and grapes to carrots and tomatoes.

Heather Coleman spoke at the the NASA Climate Policy Speaker Series on Oxfam's global work and COP21. Visit the NASA website

Chris Bacon and his colleagues have received a $300,000 mult-year National Science Foundation research grant to study food and water security under climate change for smallholders in Nicaragua.

First comes the drought, then the deluge. It’s not just that climate change is making the weather more extreme, with hotter dry spells and warmer winters that transform mountain snowpack to water. It’s also that the drought has actually made flooding more likely by diminishing the soil’s capacity to soak up moisture. It’s as if dryness defends its turf against wetness — baking the dirt into an impermeable crust, or turning it into a hydrophobic crumb that causes raindrops to bead off. ...

For months — for four years, really — California has been dying for a drink. Repeated dry winters and scorching hot summers have depleted reservoirs and river systems and set fire to much of the landscape.

The S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation asked three researchers to interview various sectors of the water data community in depth, including agencies that routinely manage water data and are therefore most familiar with the current state of water information systems. Fellow Mark Tompkins was one of the team, and offers this Executive Summary of the study's findings with the Foundation's permission. Read more

Brenda Zollitsch recently completed her report, Status and Trends Report on State Wetland Programs in the United States, which provides a comprehensive look at how states are approaching each of the four core elements for state wetland programs, including state summary documents, comparative data analysis and maps, descriptive text on status and trends and documentation of potential models.

Despite rising temperatures, Californians this summer cut their water use significantly in an effort to help the state deal with a severe, ongoing drought. The reduction for two straight months — by more than 31 percent in July alone –caught many officials by surprise, but not Mike Antos, director of California State University, Northridge’s new Center for Urban Water Resilience.

Despite rising temperatures, Californians this summer cut their water use significantly in an effort to help the state deal with a severe, ongoing drought.