Independent research and analysis of California's developed water systems
The outcome of COP26 has evoked very divergent responses from different climate scientists and activists. Climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe tweeted, Is #COP26 enough? No. Did anyone expect it to be enough? I sure didn't; this is a more ambitious effort to work together than anything we humans have ever, ever accomplished. But is it more … Continue reading Responses to COP26 and the attack/flight catastrophe model
The California’s Ocean Protection Council's 2018 Sea Level Rise Guidance projects up to 2 meters (6.9 feet) of sea level rise by 2100 [1]. In 2019, researchers at the US Geological Survey published a study of the risk from inundation from up to 2 m of sea level rise plus 100 year storm surge (Barnard … Continue reading Mountain and polar groups urgently call for more time at COP26
Climate scientist Michael Mann wrote an Op Ed in the LA Times, On the climate crisis, delay has become the new form of denial. The Op Ed has many concepts that resonate with what is happening with California water management. Mann argues: One can no longer credibly deny that climate change is real, human-caused, and a … Continue reading For California water management, delay is denial of climate change impacts
Seventy years ago, psychologists Fritz Perls, Paul Hefferline, and Richard Goodman defined confluence as considering different viewpoints and assimilating them into one's own worldview [1]: At the end of any successful experience – one that is not interrupted but allowed to complete itself – there is always a confluence of energy or energy producing materials. … Continue reading On scientific confluence and the challenges of avoiding a ghastly future in California water
The Delta Independent Science Board has just released their draft Water Supply Reliability Review. We strongly agree with their recommendation on water supply system models: The next generation of state-sponsored water supply system models for reliability estimation should be built, updated, and evaluated by a broad consortium of state and federal agencies and external experts … Continue reading On DWR’s water supply models and drought risks
SB 155, the Senate Natural Resources budget trailer bill, provides $593 million for projects that “advance multi-benefit and nature based solutions" this fiscal year, and another $175 million next fiscal year. Section 23 of the bill exempts the following projects from the California Environmental Quality Act: (1) A project to conserve, restore, protect, or enhance, … Continue reading Natural Resources budget trailer bill would exempt habitat restoration projects from CEQA
Many of my friends have cabins that are threatened by the Sierra wildfires. Across the country, others are dealing with the devastation of Hurricane Ida. Twitter has been filled with messages of shock, fear, grief, pain, and loss. I think people go through Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's stages of grief as the devastation of climate change starts … Continue reading On dealing with climate grief
The Department of Water Resources will be holding a webinar on consideration of climate change for the Delta tunnel project on August 25, 2021. The following discussion is from my testimony in 2016 for Part 1A of the WaterFix Water Right Change Petition hearing. It explains some key problems with the consideration of shifts in … Continue reading Consideration of climate change in the Delta tunnel project
California Water Research filed a protest of the May 17 Temporary Urgency Change Petition by the California Department of Water Resources and the US Bureau of Reclamation. We requested that the State Water Resources Control Board require a written report by DWR and USBR on the methodology used for the runoff forecast used in this … Continue reading TUCP: California Water Research asks Water Board to require report on 2021 runoff forecast errors
Our May 10, 2021 blog post, DWR Chief Engineer warned of climate change draining Northern California reservoirs explained how Francis Chung, the Department of Water Resources’ Bay-Delta modeling chief, sounded the alarm in 2010 that climate change could drain major Northern California reservoirs. Chung recommended that DWR develop a reoperation strategy for the State Water Project … Continue reading State Water Contractors objected to development of a drought operations strategy for the State Water Project and Central Valley Project