Facing the challenges of sustainably managing and sharing water,
our most precious natural resource, requires collaboration,
education and outreach. Since 1977, the Water Education
Foundation has put water resource issues in California and the
West in context to inspire a deep understanding of and
appreciation for water.
Taking a steady pulse of the water world, the Foundation offers
educational materials, tours of key watersheds, water news, water
leadership training and conferences that bring together diverse
voices. By providing tools and platforms for engagement with wide
audiences, we aim to help build sound and collective solutions to
water issues.
What We Do
We support and execute a wide variety of programming to build a
better understanding of water resources across the West,
including:
Mission: The mission of the Water Education
Foundation, an impartial nonprofit, is to inspire understanding
of water and catalyze critical conversations to build bridges and
inform collaborative decision-making
Vision: A society that has the ability to
resolve its water challenges to benefit all
Where We Work
Our office is located in Sacramento, CA.
Connect with Us!
Sign up here to get email announcements
about upcoming workshops, tours and new publications.
You can learn more about the daily comings and goings of the
Foundation by following @WaterEdFdn on Twitter,
liking us on Facebook or
following us on
LinkedIn.
Every other year we hold an
invitation-only Colorado River Symposium attended by various
stakeholders from across the seven Western states and Mexico that
rely on the iconic river. We host this three-day event in Santa
Fe, N.M., where the 1922 Colorado River Compact was signed, as
part of our mission to catalyze critical conversations to build
bridges and inform collaborative decision-making.
You can now register for our full slate of water tours for 2020
as well as our Water 101 workshop. Register up to six weeks
before any tour for “early bird” pricing!
Here are the details on all of our 2020 tours and the Water
101 workshop:
Many of California’s watersheds are
notoriously flashy – swerving from below-average flows to jarring
flood conditions in quick order. The state needs all the water it
can get from storms, but current flood management guidelines are
strict and unyielding, requiring reservoirs to dump water each
winter to make space for flood flows that may not come.
However, new tools and operating methods are emerging that could
lead the way to a redefined system that improves both water
supply and flood protection capabilities.
Registration is now open for one of
our most popular annual events, the Water 101 workshop, to be held Feb. 20 at
McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento. The workshop also includes
an optional tour the following day that will feature
collaborative and innovative water projects and programs.
Water 101 covers California’s water basics including the history,
geography, legal and political facets of water in the state,
as well a look at hot topics and current issues of concern.
Taught by some of California’s leading policy and legal
experts, the workshop offers attendees the opportunity
to deepen their understanding of the state’s water resources.
This holiday season, consider giving
the gift of water knowledge to the water wonk in your life.
We’re offering an array of intriguing gift options, from a ticket
to our popular Water 101 Workshop or one of our 2020 water tours
to one of our beautiful poster-size water maps, layperson’s
guides or other water publications.
It’s been a year since two devastating wildfires on opposite ends
of California underscored the harsh new realities facing water
districts and cities serving communities in or adjacent to the
state’s fire-prone wildlands. Fire doesn’t just level homes, it
can contaminate water, scorch watersheds, damage delivery systems
and upend an agency’s finances.
Applications for one of our most
popular programs, Water Leaders,
are available for the 2020 class. The deadline is Dec. 9 at
5 p.m.
Launched in 1997 and now led by Executive Director Jennifer Bowles, the Water
Leaders program is a competitive, one-year class designed
for early to mid-career, up-and-coming community leaders from
diverse backgrounds. Class members deepen their water
knowledge and enhance their leadership skills through the
program.
During the year, class members get out of the office and into the
field — whether it’s on one of our water tours to the Delta or
the lower Colorado River. They also meet with an assigned
mentor and work with their classmates on developing policy
recommendations for a challenging water issue in California.
The deadline is nearing to apply for
our highly sought-after Water Leaders program for early to
mid-career water professionals, and registration is now open for
two popular events in 2020: our Water 101 Workshop and Lower
Colorado River Tour.
The yearlong Water
Leaders class is aimed at providing a deeper
understanding of California water issues and building leadership
skills with class members attending water tours, studying a
water-related topic in-depth and working with a mentor.
California is chock full of rivers and creeks, yet the state’s network of stream gauges has significant gaps that limit real-time tracking of how much water is flowing downstream, information that is vital for flood protection, forecasting water supplies and knowing what the future might bring.
That network of stream gauges got a big boost Sept. 30 with the signing of SB 19. Authored by Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa), the law requires the state to develop a stream gauge deployment plan, focusing on reactivating existing gauges that have been offline for lack of funding and other reasons. Nearly half of California’s stream gauges are dormant.
From the technology hub of San Jose
to the coastal enclave of Monterey and from the productive
agriculture of the Salinas Valley to the rolling vineyards of
Paso Robles, participants on our Central Coast Tour Nov. 6-7
will learn about efforts by water users to achieve sustainability
in a region grappling with limited local water supplies.
A diverse roster of top
policymakers and water experts are on the
agenda for the Foundation’s 36th annual Water
Summit. The conference, Water Year 2020: A Year
of Reckoning, will feature compelling conversations
reflecting on upcoming regulatory deadlines and efforts to
improve water management and policy in the face of natural
disasters.
Tickets for the Water Summit are sold out, but by joining the waitlist we can
let you know when spaces open via cancellations.
The sustainable management of
groundwater is an important issue across California, but water
users along the coast also must deal with seawater intrusion when
their basins become imbalanced. Learn how one water district is
working to quantify the problem and address it on our Central Coast Tour Nov. 6-7.
To survive the next drought and meet
the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability
law, California is going to have to put more water back in the
ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging
overpumped aquifers is no easy task.
A UC Berkeley symposium in which water managers and others
from across the West assessed the opportunities and challenges of
improving troubled aquifers through managed aquifer recharge is
the focus of our latest article in Western
Water, our flagship publication.
To survive the next drought and meet
the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability
law, California is going to have to put more water back in the
ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging
overpumped aquifers is no easy task.
Successfully recharging aquifers could bring multiple benefits
for farms and wildlife and help restore the vital interconnection
between groundwater and rivers or streams. As local areas around
California draft their groundwater sustainability plans, though,
landowners in the hardest hit regions of the state know they will
have to reduce pumping to address the chronic overdraft in which
millions of acre-feet more are withdrawn than are naturally
recharged.
Our last tour of 2019 is all new and
will journey through a region grappling with limited local water
supplies. Solutions to issues surrounding urban, agricultural and
environmental water use on the scenic Central Coast involve
potential lessons for all of California.
Get a firsthand look at a completed
dam removal project near Monterey on our Central Coast Tour Nov. 6-7.
The removal of San Clemente Dam on the Carmel River in 2015 was
the largest project of its kind in California, and lessons
learned from it are being applied to other projects across the
state and the nation.
Although safety concerns from sediment buildup and seismic
activity were the primary drivers for the dam’s removal, it also
opened up miles of spawning habitat for salmon and steelhead on
the Carmel River that had been blocked for nearly 100 years.
California experienced one of the
most deadly and destructive wildfire years on record in 2018,
with several major fires occurring in the wildland-urban
interface (WUI). These areas, where communities are in close
proximity to undeveloped land at high risk of wildfire, have felt
devastating effects of these disasters, including direct impacts
to water infrastructure and supplies.
One panel at our 2019 Water
Summit Oct. 30 in Sacramento will feature speakers
from water agencies who came face-to-face with two major fires:
The Camp Fire that destroyed most of the town of Paradise in
Northern California, and the Woolsey Fire in the Southern
California coastal mountains. They’ll talk about their
experiences and what lessons they learned.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
Atmospheric rivers, the narrow bands
of moisture that ferry precipitation across the Pacific Ocean to
the West Coast, are necessary to keep California’s water
reservoirs full.
However, some of them are dangerous because the extreme rainfall
and wind can cause catastrophic flooding and damage, much
like what happened in 2017 with Oroville Dam’s spillway.
Learn the latest about atmospheric river research and forecasting
at our 2019 Water
Summit on Oct. 30 in Sacramento, where
prominent research meteorologist Marty Ralph will give the
opening keynote.
A multiphased project to remove
a levee along the Sacramento River north of Sacramento and
restore hundreds of acres of floodplains to reconnect to the
river is now underway.
Participants on our Northern California
Tour Oct. 2-4 will visit the site of the
restoration project near Hamilton City led by River Partners. The
project also involves the construction of a setback levee
to provide more reliable flood protection to the community
and agricultural areas along the river.
The Water Education Foundation’s tours offer participants a
first-hand look at the water facilities, rivers and regions
critical in the debate about the future of water resources.
From recent news articles to publications, maps and tours, Water
Education Foundation has everything you need, including the
award-winning Layperson’s Guide to the Delta.
