Our California Water Map, recently updated, is one of our most popular products. We also offer magazines, documentaries, posters, layperson guides and more. Our catalog offers a wide array of resources to help you understand the complex issues of water in California and the Southwest.
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California’s groundwater is a great natural resource and has contributed to the state becoming the nation’s top agricultural producer and a leader in high-tech industries. Groundwater is an asset that is increasingly relied upon by municipalities, industry and agriculture and it will play an important role in the future sustainability of California’s overall water supply.
Tomorrow’s weather forecast may be spot on, but can we ever get accurate precipitation forecasts weeks to months in advance?
At Water Year 2019: Feast or Famine, a one-day workshop Dec. 5 in Irvine, scientists from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the Western Regional Climate Center and the California Department of Water Resources will offer insights into the latest research on improving long-range weather forecasting and what it means for water management.
As the Colorado River Basin becomes drier and shortage conditions loom, one great variable remains: How much of the river’s water belongs to Native American tribes?
Native Americans already use water from the Colorado River and its tributaries for a variety of purposes, including leasing it to non-Indian users. But some tribes aren’t using their full federal Indian reserved water right and others have water rights claims that have yet to be resolved. Combined, tribes have rights to more water than some states in the Colorado River Basin.
Employees of the state Department of Water Resources, with the help of firefighting crews, were cutting brush and watering down landscapes around Lake Oroville to prevent the 117,000-acre blaze from damaging the reservoir’s infrastructure, including the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam.
This is a wet place by California standards. It averages about 55 inches of rain a year, thanks to its prime location in the verdant foothills of the Sierra Nevada, which wrings rain out of Pacific storms. But when the Camp fire sparked last Thursday, Paradise was parched. … Across California, the lack of autumn rain is having dire consequences.
Both nature and humans share blame for California’s devastating wildfires, but forest management did not play a major role, despite President Donald Trump’s claims, fire scientists say.
The blaze came on the heels of one of the hottest summers on record for the region, after years of drought that left the woodlands in the Santa Monica Mountains bone dry. … During the firefight, Los Angeles County Waterworks District No. 29, which serves Malibu, saw a significant loss of pressure in its water distribution system, something that didn’t go unnoticed by residents.
Wetlands are among the most important ecosystems in the world. They produce high levels of oxygen, filter toxic chemicals out of water, reduce flooding and erosion, recharge groundwater and provide a diverse range of recreational opportunities from fishing and hunting to photography. They also serve as critical habitat for wildlife, including a large percentage of plants and animals on California’s endangered species list.
As part of the historic Colorado River Delta, the Salton Sea regularly filled and dried for thousands of years due to its elevation of 232 feet below sea level.
The most recent version of the Salton Sea was formed in 1905 when the Colorado River broke through a series of dikes and flooded the seabed for two years, creating California’s largest inland body of water. The Salton Sea, which is saltier than the Pacific Ocean, includes 130 miles of shoreline and is larger than Lake Tahoe.
Drought— an extended period of limited or no precipitation— is a fact of life in California and the West, with water resources following boom and-bust patterns.
No portion of the West has been immune to drought during the last century and drought occurs with much greater frequency in the West than in any other regions of the country.
