As reservoirs dry up and soils dry up in the southwestern United States, the state of California is promoting a sweeping drought response plan that it says will usher in a new era of abundant water, primarily by capturing rainwater for future use. With a population larger than Canada and an economy larger than all but the world’s wealthiest countries, California occupies the continent’s most important position in responding to a decades-long drought in the region — one that has created a deepening sense of alarm about future water availability. . According to the state’s own calculations, a warmer and drier climate could wipe out a tenth of water supplies by 2040. But on Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said it’s time to move away from a mindset of scarcity to one of abundance. which he said would mean directing resources and energies “to create more water, capture more water.” Crews have significantly slowed the spread of the California wildfire burning near Yosemite National Park The new plan projects that the amount of water available to the state each year would decrease by six to nine million acre feet, compared to current levels. That’s about 10 percent of what California uses today, and about two to three times the annual consumption of the city of Los Angeles. To compensate, the plan outlines a strategy to secure an additional 6.9 million acres by 2040 – but only 7 percent through conservation measures. Another 26 percent will come from a significant expansion in water recycling, while some modest volumes will come from new desalination plants. Most of the expected gains, about two-thirds of the total, will come from storing additional rainwater runoff and stormwater volumes. As the climate warms, less precipitation falls as snow and more as rain, which “can then quickly leave the landscape. It’s not a reservoir like snow is,” said David Lewis, watershed management specialist with the University of California Cooperative Extension offices in Marin and Napa counties. “This is largely why capture and storage technologies are being explored and expanded.” Mr. Newsom promised new efforts to remove regulatory barriers to water-related projects, calling current permitting timelines “ridiculous.” His office has also renewed a push to legislate a 2045 carbon neutrality goal. “Let’s wake up to what’s going on,” the governor said Thursday, pointing to the rising toll due to extreme weather. “We have to recognize the world we live in.” The US freshwater crisis could lead Washington to look north. Is Canada ready to quench its thirst? But critics say it’s not clear that California’s new plan fully addresses the scale of climate change underway. For example, it describes expanding and repairing dams to capture more water, including the San Luis Reservoir. This reservoir has fallen to historic lows in recent years and is currently at 30 percent of capacity. The plan proposes conservation measures that underscore the enormity of the problem. By 2030, he says, California will remove 46 square kilometers of turf, an area of turf three times the size of downtown Los Angeles, at a cost of US$1 billion. But that effort will save just 66,000 acre-feet of water, less than 1 percent of the total expected gains. (An acre foot is 1.2 million liters.) The plan also considers setting aside up to one million acres of farmland by 2040 – 12.5 percent of what’s in California – but provides no estimate of how much water could be saved. Recent scholarship suggests that the decline in water availability is already occurring at a rapid rate. Earlier this year, researchers from several institutions — the Desert Research Institute, the University of California, Merced and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at UC San Diego — found that warmer, drier conditions create a greater “atmospheric thirst.” In some areas of the US Southwest, this thirst alone is evaporating 8 percent to 15 percent more water than in the past. The parched soil and plants are consuming larger amounts than what appears, said Deirdre Des Jardins, a computer modeling expert who is director of California Water Research, an organization that frequently contributes to the state’s policy debates. “There is overall less runoff in the catchment,” Ms Des Jardins said. He criticized the state of California’s reliance on digital models that use historical trends to predict future water availability, which he said creates “magic water” — an illusion of future supply. It’s possible, he said, that California’s available water has already shrunk by 10 percent. Failure to respond appropriately, he warned, could lead to a situation like the one already happening in Mexican cities like Monterrey, a metropolis of five million whose three reservoirs have run dry, leaving many homes without running water. “It’s a warning sign of what happens if you don’t look at the worst case scenario under climate change and plan for it,” he said. Achieving substantial reductions in water use will require addressing long-standing flaws in California’s allocation to water rights holders, some of whom have junior rights that give them lower priority. The state needs “increased capacity to stop water diversions when stream flows are reduced,” the new plan says. And he promises the state will “consider adopting regulations” to stop certain allocations in years where droughts have not been declared. What’s needed is a better system where California could “give people water when it’s available — and tell them they can’t have it when it’s not,” said Michael Kiparsky, a water expert. who is director of the UC Berkeley School of Law’s Wheeler Water Institute. It will be hard to do that, he said. “It’s going to lead to a lot of legal battles and it’s going to test the political will of the governor and the legislature.” Other changes will test Californians’ willingness to sacrifice established parts of their lives, including the grass around their homes. “Grass is a luxury we’ve had for the last 100 years. But we may not be able to afford that luxury anymore,” said Mike Garcia, the owner of Enviroscape LA, a Redondo Beach contractor that creates low-water gardens. There may be no other choice. For as long as anyone can remember, water flowed every time Californians turned on their faucets. “The time is coming when that may not happen,” Mr. Garcia said. The Morning Update and Afternoon Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. Sign up today.
