Watch our series of short videos on the importance of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, how it works as a water hub for
California and the challenges it is facing.
When a person opens a spigot to draw a glass of water, he or she
may be tapping a source close to home or hundreds of miles away.
Water gets to taps via a complex web of aqueducts, canals and
groundwater.
Learn more about our team in the office and on the Board of
Directors and how you can support our nonprofit mission by
donating in someone’s honor or memory, or becoming a regular
contributor or supporting specific projects.
Unlike California’s majestic rivers and massive dams and
conveyance systems, groundwater is out of sight and underground,
though no less plentiful. The state’s enormous cache of
underground water is a great natural resource and has contributed
to the state becoming the nation’s top agricultural producer and
leader in high-tech industries.
A new era of groundwater management began in 2014 in California
with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. The landmark law
turned 10 in 2024, with many challenges still ahead.
Happy New Year to all the friends, supporters, readers of articles and participants of the tours and workshops we featured in 2025! We are deeply grateful to each and every person who engaged with us last year.
We have much to look forward to in 2026, especially as we gear up to mark and celebrate the Foundation’s 50th anniversary in 2027!
One of our most exciting projects this year will be replacing our 12-year-old website with a beautifully streamlined version that is mobile-adaptable. It will allow fora more intuitive experience as users conduct research, read our weekday newsfeed or water encyclopedia, and sign up for tours and events.
Along with our new website, we’ll be launching a new and improved Aquafornia newsfeed to better align with our reach across California and the Colorado River Basin. Stay tuned!
New Water Map & Spanish Version of California Water Guide
By summer, we’ll publish an update to our Layperson’s Guide to California Water in English and, for the first time, in Spanish. We will also publish a new Klamath River map to illustrate the nation’s largest dam removal project in the watershed straddling Oregon and California.
With social media, we’ll continue focusing on LinkedIn as our primary go-to channel as we ease off Facebook and X/Twitter where engagement has dropped. But not to fear; we’ll continue posting on Instagram.
Our array of 2026 programming begins later this month when we welcome our incoming California Water Leaders cohort. We’ll be sure to introduce them to you and let you know what thorny California water policy issue they’ll be tackling.
We’ll also be welcoming our third cohort of Colorado River Water Leaders in March.Applications are due Jan. 26 so be sure to get them in soon!
The biennial program, which will run from March to September
next year, selects about a dozen rising
stars from the seven states that rely on the river
– California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New
Mexico – Mexico and tribal nations.
The seven-month program is designed for working professionals who
explore issues surrounding the iconic Southwest
river, deepen their water knowledge, and build leadership
and collaborative skills.
Listen to
a recording of our virtual Q&A session
where executive director Jenn Bowles and other Foundation staff
provided an overview on the program and tips on applying.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox is again calling on people of all faiths
to pray for precipitation, as the state’s snowpack nears a low
point in the modern era of snowpack collection tracking.
… His call comes as Utah’s snowpack remains at 5 inches
of snow water equivalent, or 60% of the median average for the
final week of January. It’s also only about one-third of the
median average for any given year, with only about two months
left before the normal peak. … Cox’s call for prayers
comes less than a week after federal hydrologists
released a discouraging first water supply outlook for the
year, where they pointed out that the state might see
equally below-average streamflows by the time the snowpack
melts this spring.
Reliable access to water remained a dominant factor in
agricultural land valleys in Kern County over 2025, according
to data compiled by brokerage and appraisal company Alliance
Ag. Sales data from the past 21 years clearly show a “SGMA
effect” that has driven prices down overall since the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act was
passed in 2014. The good news is that it appears land values
dropped less steeply in 2025 and may even have bottomed out in
some water category districts. … So-called “white
lands,” meaning land outside of water district boundaries that
rely almost exclusively on groundwater, have lingered at
between $2,000 and $3,000 an acre for the past three years.
A program designed to get farmers to switch to new water-saving
technologies is showing signs of success, lawmakers on Utah’s
Capitol Hill were told during a budget hearing. During a
hearing of the Utah State Legislature’s Natural Resources
Appropriations Committee, Utah’s Department of Agriculture &
Food reported the agriculture water optimization program, which
helps farmers buy new irrigation equipment that’s more
water-efficient, has resulted in roughly 100,000 acre-feet per
year of savings. … On Utah’s Capitol Hill, lawmakers
have passed dozens of bills and spent roughly $1 billion on
water conservation measures to help the [Great Salt]
lake and the Colorado River.
… Through a series of blog posts, we will explore how
California might leverage AI to better manage our water
resources, while mitigating the risks of this rapidly evolving
technology. … One of the most popular types of AI for
water is machine learning, in which models learn and adapt
without explicit instructions. In California, the Department of
Water Resources and the State Water Resources Control Board
have applied machine learning models to a range of topics, from
modeling salinity to predicting drought impacts. … Perhaps
the most thorny challenge is that no one knows how AI reaches
its answers, including those who built the systems. Building
the data infrastructure, quality control, and trust in AI
outputs is critical, especially as its use in the water sector
becomes more commonplace.
Operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the
Bay Model is a giant hydraulic replica of San Francisco
Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta. It is housed in a converted World II-era
warehouse in Sausalito near San Francisco.
Hundreds of gallons of water are pumped through the
three-dimensional, 1.5-acre model to simulate a tidal ebb
and flow lasting 14 minutes.
As part of the historic Colorado
River Delta, the Salton Sea regularly filled and dried for
thousands of years due to its elevation of 237 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.
During California’s 2012–2016 drought, much of the state
experienced severe drought conditions: significantly less
precipitation and snowpack, reduced streamflow and higher
temperatures. Those same conditions reappeared early in 2021
prompting Gov. Gavin Newsom in May to declare drought emergencies
in watersheds across 41 counties in California.
