Find out what the Water Education Foundation is up to with
announcements about upcoming events, tours, new Western
Water articles on key water topics and more!
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You can support the Water Education
Foundation’s efforts to educate about water resources in
California and the West through the annual workplace giving
programs now underway with federal, state and private employers.
Whether you joined one of our our water tours, participated in
our Water Leaders program, kept up-to-date with our weekday
Aquafornia water newsfeed or Western Water news
articles, or perused our Layperson’s Guides to key water issues,
you already know our strong commitment to improving understanding
of and appreciation for our most crucial natural resource.
Our inaugural 2022 Colorado River Water
Leaders class completed its six-month program with a
report outlining key policy recommendations for managing the
Colorado River after existing operating guidelines expire in
2026.
The class of 13
up-and-coming leaders included engineers, lawyers,
resource specialists, scientists and others working for public,
private and nongovernmental organizations from across the river’s
basin. The class had full editorial control to choose its
recommendations.
The team at the Water Education Foundation is gearing up for a
busy fall programming season. Check out the details below. We
hope to see you at some point!
Our premier event of the year,
the Foundation’s 38th annual Water Summiton Oct. 27 in Sacramento will highlight
conversations that examine our relationship with water resources
and how best to address the challenges presented by ongoing
drought and a changing climate.
With this year’s theme, Rethinking
Water in the West, a variety of policymakers,
experts and officials will be discussing important topics in
water across California and the West. Conversations will
take place around rethinking:
Water management in a drought-driven West
Water rights in light of drought-spawned shortages and
climate change
The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which acts as the state’s
crucial water hub and serves as a vital ecological resource
In addition, there will be an update on the status of
California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
A tour
along the San Joaquin River to learn more about
infrastructure and the impacts on farms and habitat from salmon
restoration efforts.
Plus, with all the activity involving water in California
and the drought gripping the West, be sure to subscribe to
our Aquafornia service
so you don’t miss out on top water news compiled each
weekday and delivered to your inbox.
Check out the details below to learn more about these fall
programs and our Aquafornia newsfeed.
A science journalist and author
whose new book highlights efforts to reshape how we think about
and work with water will provide the keynote address at the
Foundation’s 2022 Water
Summit on Oct. 27 in Sacramento.
Author Erica Gies, whose new book is titled Water Always Wins: Thriving in an
Age of Drought and Deluge, explores what she calls “Slow
Water” innovations that can potentially offer resilience to the
increasing severity of droughts and floods brought on by climate
change.
As our programs team at the Water
Education Foundation is busy this summer putting together
fall events such as tours, our annual Water Summit and our Water
Leader alum reunion, our journalism team is helping to raise
water awareness every day.
You can access our newsfeed each
morning of the top articles on water issues in
California and the West and even get it sent to your inbox. You
can also find interactive maps showing reservoir levels,
water-savings tips and more on our special online drought resource
page.
And we just published our latest Western Water
article focused on a pilot program in the Salinas
Valley that is run remotely out of Los Angeles. It’s offering a
test case for how California could provide clean drinking water
for isolated rural communities plagued by contaminated
groundwater that lack the financial means or expertise to connect
to a larger water system.
You can now register for the in-person return of the
Foundation’s 38th annual Water Summit, a one-day
conference highlighting the latest information and
perspectives on water resources in California and the West.
The event includes an evening reception along California’s
largest and longest river, the Sacramento River, for an
opportunity to network with speakers and other attendees from a
variety of backgrounds.
Our fall schedule also includes:
A reunion for our Water Leaders graduates to
celebrate the 25th anniversary of the program
Tours exploring California’s two largest
rivers, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, to learn
more about infrastructure, the impacts on farms,
cities and habitat from a third year of drought and salmon
restoration efforts.
Check out the details below to learn more about these fall
programs.
We are gearing up to mark the 25th anniversary of our
Water Leaders class by holding a reunion this
fall for the many scientists, farmers,
environmentalists, water managers, lawyers, engineers and others
who have gone through our program over the years.
The Oct. 26 reunion by the American River
will be held the day before our annual Water
Summit, which will be open to all interested.
Registration is coming soon for the reunion and the Water Summit,
but you can sign up now for our fall tours,
which will take journeys along California’s two longest rivers.
Seats are already filling up! Check out the details below to
learn more about these upcoming programs.
Register today for the return of our
in-person fall tours offering
participants a firsthand look at issues such as drought
along California’s two longest rivers, which have
implications for the entire state.
Our Northern
California Tourexplores the Sacramento
River and its tributaries to learn about key reservoirs and
infrastructure that conveys vital water resources across
California. Our San Joaquin River
Restoration Tourreturns this year to dive
into the story of bringing back the river’s chinook salmon
population while balancing water supply needs.
Mark your calendars now for our full schedule of fall programs,
including a reunion of our Water Leaders graduates to celebrate
the 25th anniversary of the program as well as the in-person
return of our 38th annual Water Summit.
Our fall programming also includes tours exploring California’s
two largest rivers, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, to learn
more about infrastructure, the impacts on farms and habitat from
a third year of drought and salmon restoration efforts.
Check out the details below to learn more about these fall
programs.
The Water Education Foundation’s
just-released 2021 Annual Report recaps how,
even amid the ongoing global pandemic, we continued
educating about the most crucial natural resource in California
and the West — water.
The annual report takes readers along to see the array of
educational events, trainings and articles we produced last year,
including engaging virtual water
tours that educated participants on pressing water
issues and allowed them to interact with each other and a wide
range of experts offering different viewpoints.
Managers of California’s most
overdrawn aquifers were given a monumental task under the state’s
landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act: Craft viable,
detailed plans on a 20-year timeline to bring their beleaguered
basins into balance. Altogether, they submitted plans for 20
basins for review by the California Department of Water Resources
in January 2020. Earlier this year, DWR rendered its verdict:
Most of the basin plans were incomplete.
Now groundwater agencies responsible for 12 of those basins are
racing to meet a late July deadline to submit revised plans that
measure up to SGMA’s requirements or risk the state stepping in
to manage their groundwater basins. Despite the state’s verdict,
some groundwater managers say they believe they’re well on their
way to making the changes needed to ultimately win the state’s
approval.
In our latest article, Western Water
explored the array of challenges these groundwater managers
face in getting their sustainability plans to fulfill the state’s
requirements, how some agencies were able to largely meet the
state’s expectations, and what lies ahead for those plans that
fell short.
You can now remotely attend a special one-day workshop
this Thursday in Southern California to
learn about the latest advancements in sub-seasonal to seasonal
forecasting — weather predictions from two weeks to a season
ahead — and how these predictions can improve management of
water infrastructure including dams, flood storage and reservoirs
to ensure water is available for urban, agricultural and
environmental purposes.
As climate change continues to make our reliance on historical
patterns to forecast California’s water supply increasingly
unreliable, what new science, models and technology are being
brought to bear on efforts to ‘get ahead of the storms’ and
improve drought management?
The one-day workshop, Making Progress on Drought
Management: Improvements in Seasonal Precipitation
Forecasting, is sponsored by the California Department of
Water Resources in partnership with the Water Education
Foundation. In-person registration is still available until the
day of the workshop.
California’s 2021-2022 water year
went from a relatively wet October-December beginning to the
driest January-March period in the state’s history. That has
left most of the state’s vast network of surface water
reservoirs including Lake Oroville, a key Northern
California reservoir that sends water to Southern California,
now below historic
average going into the dry, summer months.
With our reliance on historical patterns to forecast California’s
water supply becoming increasingly unreliable, what new
science, models and technology are being brought to bear on
efforts to ‘get ahead of the storms’ and improve drought
management?
Join the team at the Water Education
Foundation, a highly respected and impartial nonprofit
that has been a trusted source of water news and educational
programming in California and across the West for more than 40
years.
We have a full-time opening for a dynamic, strategic and
energetic development director to
generate grant support and other funding for programs carried out
by our events and journalism teams.
Heading into a third consecutive
summer of drought, California and the West are facing stark water
challenges.
Water levels in many of California’s largest reservoirs are
significantly below average, and the state’s Sierra snowpack that
helps replenish many of them into the early summer is largely
gone. Plummeting reservoir levels have triggered sharp cuts to
water deliveries for thirsty farms and cities, prompting state
and local officials to plead for the public to conserve remaining
supplies. Declining reservoir levels are also expected to curb
generation of hydroelectricity, a crucial source of power during
hot summer months.
For anyone trying to stay current with the unfolding drought
in California and the West, the Water Education Foundation’s
journalism team has created All
Things Drought, a special resource page that offers
links to real-time reservoir data and water supply forecasts, an
ongoing newsfeed to help you stay up to date on the latest news
and tips so you can help conserve the region’s most precious
natural resource.
California’s vast network of surface
water reservoirs is designed to hold carryover storage from year
to year to ensure water is available for urban, agricultural and
environmental purposes during dry months and years.
But climate change has begun to affect our reliance on historical
weather patterns to predict California’s water supply, making it
even more difficult for water managers to manage drought
conditions and placing a greater emphasis on better precipitation
forecasting at longer lead times.
Learn about efforts being made to ‘get ahead of the storms’
through new science, models and technology at our special one-day
workshop June 9 in Irvine, Making Progress on Drought Management: Improvements in
Seasonal Precipitation Forecasting. The event is
sponsored by the California Department of Water Resources in
partnership with the Water Education Foundation.
How can California water managers
get ahead of the storms to improve drought management? A special
one-day workshop June 9 in Irvine will highlight some of the
latest research on seasonal precipitation forecasting that could
help water managers across the state plan better for what winter
might bring.
With the recent news that California
has officially begun 2022 with its lowest January
through April precipitation level since 1895, how reliable
are the historical patterns traditionally used to forecast
California’s water supply? Tomorrow’s weather forecast may
be spot on, but can we ever get accurate precipitation forecasts
weeks to months in advance?
