Environmental performance in real estate

Today, environmental performance in real estate has become a major concern for many players. Water and fluids in the buildings management represents such a major point of this performance. The corporate real estate (SIMI) which runs from 5 to 7 December 2012 in the Palais des Congrès de Paris is an opportunity to analyze the changes in the sector and to the launch of Ocea Smart Building, the new entity of Suez Environment, expert real estate performance management.

Environmental performance in the real estate concerns all types of residential and tertiary buildings and must be parsed through the habits of consumption of the inhabitants and the occupants. Water and fluids management is one of the levers of this environmental performance. Beyond the water, the building is the economic sector the most energy intensive of our country with nearly 46% of the total final energy consumption. It is in this context and against the predominant weight of the building in the energy consumption of the country surrounding the Grenelle 1 and especially the Grenelle 2 environment, complemented by the thermal regulation 2012 proposed programs to large scale energy consumption reduction of the buildings.

GDF SUEZ / REDUCED FRANCK / MICHELE BOURGEOIS ARCHITECT DPLG

Ocea Smart Building, real estate performance management expert
Born in July 2012 for the rapprochement of three subsidiaries of Suez Environnement (CASCO, Isiom and Lyonnaise des water PRO), Casco Smart Building today is the only actor to cover the whole value chain, from the collection of the data until the restitution portal and business intelligence. This new player is positioned on the market of the real estate performance management to help measure and analyze consumption, reduce the environmental footprint and finally to comply with regulatory standards.

Better manage its water consumption
Social landlords and owners will have to make available to the tenants, modern tools to individually control their consumption. Today, the challenge lies in the mastery of the charges relating to the fluid (cold, hot water, electricity, gas, heating). Ocea Smart Building has put in place a service "warning leak" that can generate on average more than 10% of water through fast shipments of mails and SMS. Another solution, an ISI Habitat portal that offers multi energy control to control the distribution of loads through the implementation of meter remote reading of energy consumption of water, gas, electricity, heating, temperature. This device allows a daily consumption of homes online tracking and alert the donors and the residents in the event of abnormal consumption. Beyond these technical tools, personalized support is also set up with for example the communication of instructions and behaviours (economic and environmental) to be followed by the inhabitants.

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When the water turns as a writing medium

Who would have imagined that one can write about water a day? We all know that water is a liquid, it can not be frozen, use it to write messages statement then the impossible. But scientists have met this challenge by developing the experiences to write symbols on the water. Panorama of the different techniques developed.

The concept of hydroglyphes
During a demonstration, scientists from Harvard and the Merrimack High School students presented a quite amazing concept that allows to write actually with water and that the scientists have named "hydroglyphes". During the experiment, the participants placed a self-adhesive foam (in the form of a letter of the alphabet, for example) on the bottom of a box of Petri dishes. However, this last is inherently hydrophobic, meaning that it tends to repel water. Once the foam is placed, the experimenters have installed container under a Tesla coil. This device allows to achieve very high electrical voltages then causing a purple spark accompanied by a noise loud enough. This operation makes the driver air and pushes oxygen to combine with the plastic material. The surface of the plate is then hydrophilic (water attracting)... except obviously the surface obscured by the adhesive shape (which is then removed). The message is thus printed in water and may remain so for 1 month...

The principle of standing waves
Another way to use the water for recreational purposes, the AMOEBA (Advanced Multiple Organized Experimental Basin) device dating back to 1997 that is to surround 50 generators of waves in a pool. These generators work just moving up and down a controlled manner to give a particular form in the water thanks to the cylindrical waves that form pixels. These pixels are combined to form all the letters of the alphabet or symbols. This technique could find its way into fun as arts such as amusement parks.

A cascade of words
In the same idea, Julius Popp, an artist as recognized in the field of the art in scientific research has discovered the existence of sensors for dropping water droplets to write the words in the air through a screen liquid where every drop of water becomes pixel. Assembly and the rate of fall of drops of water to form letters, words that scroll as a generic without end. Signs that become messages and random slogans fade one after the other... A beautiful cascade of words.

Lessons from Hurricane Sandy for Bay Area business leaders

AppId is over the quota AppId is over the quota  Likely seawater inundation of Bay Area from an intense 100-year storm (1% probability in any given year) today (blue) and with 150 cm sea level rise (red). US Geological Survey, 2010

By Jeffrey F. Mount, geology professor and founding director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

As you read this today, Hurricane Sandy is colliding with cold air from Canada and creating an impressive storm in the Northeast.

Strong onshore winds and an intense low-pressure system are causing storm surges as high as 13 feet in Lower Manhattan, threatening to swamp the subway system. On the land, 5-10 inches of rain is flooding creeks and rivers and overwhelming stormwater systems.

This combination of too much runoff heading to the ocean and too much water surging in from the ocean will continue to cause dramatic coastal flooding this week. Worse, the combination is centered on the most densely populated part of the Northeast coast, setting the stage for maximum economic damage and disruption.

The San Francisco Bay Area business community should be taking notes. This trifecta of high tides, storm surge and intense rain is also a Bay Area scenario. Scientists and a host of government agencies have been warning about such an event for years.

It may not appear so on a map, but the Bay Area has half of California’s shoreline. Unlike the rest of the state’s coast, most of that shoreline is along reclaimed lowlands that are prone to flooding from the bay and surrounding creeks – the same as waterfront cities in New York and New Jersey.

A major storm in the Bay Area would put more than 140,000 people at risk of serious flooding, along with $30 billion worth of public assets that include the Port of Oakland, two major airports and 800 miles of roadways.

Though they are not hurricanes, California experiences its own form of tropical storms known as the Pineapple Express. Scientists call these storms “atmospheric rivers.” They tap into energy and moisture from the tropics, producing winds and rainfall rates that match the fury of Hurricane Sandy. When these storms combine with high tides, much as Sandy has, they can cause widespread flooding along the coast in the Bay Area.

Many regional and local planning agencies have sounded the alarm: the Association of Bay Area Governments; the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; the Bay Area Council; the Metropolitan Transportation Commission; CalTrans; the California Ocean Protection Council; the Environmental Protection Agency; and the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board. In addition, all nine Bay Area counties have identified this flooding scenario as significant potential hazard in their general plans.

Meanwhile, the business community has been passive – ensuring nothing will get done. This may be because so much of the Bay Area discussion on flood risk has been in the long-term context of sea level rise resulting from climate change.

Yet all of the flood studies have shown that the risk today is high. Sea level rise will only make matters worse.

Bay Area business leaders should map this week’s whopper storm in the Northeast onto their own coastal turf. As California’s version of Sandy rolls in and overwhelms the Bay Area’s meager flood defenses, businesses like Oracle, Cisco, Intuit, Lockheed Martin, Google and Facebook will find themselves unable to do business, possibly for a long time.

It makes good business sense for these businesses to move aggressively to manage their coastal flood risk.

Further reading

Association of Bay Area Governments interactive flood maps.

Adapting to Rising Tides, a collaborative effort to plan for big storms and rising sea levels, led by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Cloern, J.E., N. Knowles, L.R. Brown, D. Cayan, M.D. Dettinger, T.L. Morgan, D.H. Schoellhamer, M.T. Stacey, M. van der Wegen, R.W. Wagner, and A.D. Jassby, 2011, Projected evolution of California’s San Francisco Bay-Delta-River System in a century of climate change, PLoS ONE, 6

Hanak, E., J. Lund, A. Dinar, B. Gray, R. Howitt, J. Mount, P. Moyle, B. Thompson, 2011, Managing California’s Water: From Conflict to Reconciliation. San Francisco, Public Policy Institute of California. 482 p.

Heberger, M., H. Cooley, P. Herrera, P.H. Gleick, and E. Moore, 2009, The Impacts of Sea-Level Rise on the California Coast, California Climate Change Center, CEC-500-2009-024-F, Sacramento, California, 101 pp.

Knowles, N., 2010, Potential inundation due to rising sea levels in the San Francisco Bay Region. San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science.

NRC (National Research Council), 2012, Sea-level Rise for the Coasts of California, Oregon and Washington: Past, Present and Future. Committee on Sea Level Rise in California, Oregon and Washington. National Academies Press.

#GIVINGTUESDAY

If you are thinking about how to give back this holiday season, check out some of our partners who have joined to #GivingTuesday by supporting our campaign holiday 100 wells in Ethiopia.

Our friends of Bonobos launch charity: collaboration to build at least two wells in Ethiopia's water. Buy any Blue item in their Collection and they will give $5 for clean water. Visit their site to see some of their offerings, including their very buzzed on pants, shirts and a charity: water brand iPhone case.

Events Stir for match.com are together cause of mind nationwide on #GivingTuesday to help fund charity: water well in Ethiopia. Tonight they'll hold events happy hour in 17 cities across the country, giving every cent of ticket sales to charity: water holiday campaign.

This holiday season, other World Computing decided to collect the $125,000 to fund projects of water in Ethiopia. In order to achieve their goal, they are donating $5 to charity: water for every new follower of their #GivingTuesday @macsales Twitter account. Keep an eye on their mycharity: page 'campaigns' water as well as to monitor their progress!

If you want to just make a donation to charity: water, we have a few options this holiday season. Visit our donations page for more information. 100% of every dollar you give will fund water projects in developing countries.

How you will spend your #GivingTuesday?

A brand new technology supported by Google

 

The first projects we ever built were six wells in a refugee camp in Uganda. We wanted to prove to our donors that their money was spent exactly how we said it would be, and where it went.

Us is entered in an electronics store and buy a GPS handheld for $100. We have taken to Uganda, went to each project and six plotted points on Google Maps ™. And then we made public information on our Web site as well as photos for everyone to see. We have done this since then.

Fast forward six years later and we have now more than 6 994 water projects in 20 countries, serving more than 2.5 million people. And even if we continued to map each unique project of the water, we do not believe their location is good enough plus. We want to know if each of them is working right now in real time.

Although our staff and our local partners visit our programs often, it is simply not possible to visit each project often enough to make sure that the water flows all the time. Thanks to the Google Global Impact Award, we will be able to go hope this function of projects over time, namely that they are.

But just to know the State projects is not good enough. If a failure occurs, it must be a system in place to ensure that it attaches quickly. This is why an important part of this pilot project will be to continue the training and establishment of local mechanical programs everywhere in the world that can ship to the communities within their reach and make repairs. This will create new jobs and small businesses in places where they do not now exist.

We know the data will discover new challenges, but we are excited and committed to meet their head on. We used Google Maps ™ to innovate over the past six years and today we are incredibly excited to work with Google on the sensor technology remotely, this time to further increase the transparency of our donors and deliver the water more effectively than ever before, the people who most need.

 

An interview with Rick Smolan

We met Rick Smolan six years ago. He was working on a book project entitled Blue Planet Run - a sophisticated collection of photos and stories about water resources of our planet. He asked to use one of our photos from a well in Ethiopia in the first pages of the book, and we have been friends and fans of their work since then. Now, we are pleased to be part of the next Rick book project, the human face of large data. With this new adventure, he began to make large amounts of information to life through Visual narration - something we know many here to charity: water.

When the launched book, Rick team donated $ 1 for every download of the Big data application and raised $ 50,000 to fund projects of drinking water in Ethiopia. Then, they launched an iPad on iTunes App and 100% of the profits will support charity: water.

You can support charity: water projects by downloading the Big data app for $2.99 here. 100% of the profits to fund drinking water projects around the world.

Here is an interview with Rick - it has shared with us what it looks like to interpret large data for a living and how we can apply it to our work on the ground.

My son of 10 years recently heard talk me on the phone about this project and asked me asked me what is large data. I said: "Imagine if all mankind sought through a look all of our existence and all of a sudden, the scientists allowed us to open a second look. You get not only more information, more data; literally, you get a whole new dimension. You get the depth and perspective, of 3D vision. It is given large, not just information but a new way to see or retrieve the sense of a sea of information. "In words simple, large gives us a whole new way of looking at things.

Our team is inspired by their efforts to raise awareness of the fact that one in nine people do not have access to a basic human need, such as the clean, safe water. It seemed an obvious choice to support charity: water by donating all proceeds from the the human face of large data iPad app to their noble cause. And the fact that 100% of our donation will directly fund projects in developing countries was a sweater.

The ability to collect, analyze, triangulate and visualize large amounts of data in real time, is that something the world has never had before. This new set of tools-so-called "Big Data" otherwise - has begun to emerge as a new approach to address some of the greatest challenges of the world and we thought it would be the perfect time to generate a global conversation reflected on a set of emerging technologies that could truly change the world.

The iPad has changed the ways people consume and the experience of content, and we have felt it was important to take advantage of this exciting new medium in a way that has not been made before. The human face of large data iPad app is one of the most innovative ways we used technology to tell a story. It will feature all the stories in the book as well as interactive content that allows the reader to go further and learn more about these fascinating stories. The $ $ app costs $2.99 and is available for download (iTunes). 100% of profits from downloads will be donated to charity: water.

We have spent months find photographs and compilation assignments for professional photographers that we have shipped all over the world. The images have an incredible sense of privacy - are people in over 30 countries and in all cases, the theme is on the data, sometimes great and sometimes little time to be great, is in contact with such an incredible array of human life in the world today.

You can learn more on campaign in the face of human data Big for Ethiopia by visiting their mycharity: water http://mycharitywater.org/the-human-face-of-big-data site

We did. $ 3 000 000 + was raised to charity: ball

Monday evening was unforgettable. We hosted our annual charity 7: gala ball at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City and more than 1,800 of you have joined us. Seth Meyers of Saturday Night Live hosted the evening and we collected more than 3 million $ in a single night. We want to say thank you to all those who, based in New York and celebrated with us.

The Waterwalk is a constant to each charity: ball, but this year we have built around a circle in the middle of the room scene. We asked the guests to walk a fraction of the distance that people in developing countries walk to bring water home to their families. For each person who walked, W Hotels and TOMS has donated $ 250 for projects of water in India. We raised $500,000 through the single Waterwalk.

We're not fans of galas long sit-down, congestion nasal, but instead of this, we treat the night as a big party... a big party. We are above all trying to new things to charity: water for this year, we tried a completely new concept during the auction. Years, abandon us the model traditional sale of holiday packages, watches and handbags and our auctions live became a pure giving event. But there was one thing that always bugged us - price tags have remained high. The auction worked and always, we raised funds, but it alienated many of our customers. So this year, we decided to turn upside down the concept and start low. We began the auction and asked the guests to join a minimum of only $200. And then they had the opportunity to climb to levels of $500, $1000, $5000 and $50,000. It worked. In 25 minutes, we had $800,000 in pledges in addition to 200 people.

Here are some photos of the evening:

Photos by Adam Mason, Audrey Rudolf, Josh Wong/guest of a guest, Matthew Borowick, Nancy Borowick

We would like to thank our amazing corporate partners and key supporters for making this evening possible.

Special thanks to the following people for making the charity: possible ball.

The water in the development of the Millennium (MDGs) after 2015 strategy: the role of Governments

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5 What would you want governments to do?

Water needs to move up governments' priority lists. They should strengthen leadership, identify actionable goals and set priorities at different levels — nationally, in individual watersheds/river basins, and locally. And instead of a multiplicity of different agencies acting in silos, governments should aim to build comprehensive water resource management strategies that also take into account the water-food-energy nexus.

Furthermore, governments should aim to bring together stakeholders in watersheds, both at a community and national level to discuss goals and their implementation. Experience with the MDGs shows that political mobilization for development goals at a global level is not enough.

They should help to build local institutions (for water services and allowance, for instance), act as an efficient regulator and set incentives that ensure cost-effective solutions. Water services such as water supply and wastewater are mostly in the hands of governments: they have to look for ways to ensure management becomes more efficient.

A clear and credible plan for long-term finance of infrastructure should be an inherent part of their strategy.

Best practice: there is now a great deal of evidence on both the obstacles to MDG progress and how to overcome them. There is a range of tried and tested tools and policies (see also post on question 1) which, adapted to national contexts, will ensure MDG progress where there is the leadership, capacity and funding to implement them. One could imagine a catalogue of good practice by governments, building on lessons from pilot countries (UNDP).

These are only ideas and the list is incomplete. It requires further discussion, particularly by people working in governments and intergovernmental agencies.

This is the last of my five posts on the post-2015 global development goals discussion. Please read back over the first four posts if you have not seen them and feel free to how:

1 Were the original MDG targets helpful in focusing the minds of government, business and civil society on the water crisis and its importance within overall social and economic development?

2 What still remains to be done before 2015 to complete the job started in 2000?

3. On the assumption that we would like the post-2015 goals to still include a target on water, how should we frame it? What would be the key measures of progress and success?

4 What role and responsibility should the private sector play in delivering thesis goals?

A wide-ranging conversation about the Water Challenge

AppId is over the quota AppId is over the quota

I recently talked to the IMD Corporate Learning Network, part of the International Institute for Management Development, a Swiss business school. We covered a wide range of topics: water scarcity, the creation of the Water Resources Group, the lessons that the world can learn from India, moving from education to implementation, the pricing of water, and the role of bottled water. Please take a look at the video and let me know your thoughts and reactions.

The water in the development of the Millennium (MDGs) after 2015 strategy: what role for the sector private?

 

Discussion on the objectives of global development after 2015 should examine the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders. One of these stakeholders, including the private sector, is at the center of some of the initial ideas when answering the question:

4. What role and responsibility of the private sector to take delivering these objectives?

Part of the role of business in achieving these objectives can be commercial, especially given the huge amount of funding for the maintenance and expansion of the water infrastructure necessary to achieve the objectives.

I mentioned the amounts needed up to 2030, but they are only a part, but needs an especially important framework, funding for infrastructure. In fact, an estimated gain of USD 50 billion of infrastructure spending will be required by 2030, of which 55% is for water and wastewater (report BCG;) The challenge of the 2010 global infrastructure; City of Kirill Dmitriev, president B20 Task force, investment and Infrastructure, Moscow December 12, 2012).

Given the budgetary problems in many countries, these orders of magnitude underline the need for participation of the private sector with trade finance and project management for cost effectiveness. But these are points politically very sensitive and require a debate led by Governments and local actors (see my answer to question 5).

No doubt, the role of the business must also go beyond the above, especially when you consider the business as an actor in the company with its own responsibilities and opportunities to act. But in some ways, the answer to question 5 must precede any response to question 4.

For reasons related to the nature of the issues at hand, Governments must take the lead in providing orientation and strategy, transparency (for example about the cost) and General and regulatory frameworks for access to water and sanitation and water resources management.

This would allow the companies to focus on what interests us (not solutions of "pretend" and not piecemeal) and profitable. In many cases, companies may be able to provide technical expertise and managerial and efficiency.

However, given the difficulties that occur often to take advantage of public-private partnerships in areas such as these, our proposal would be to up and running with a catalogue of good practices for Governments to choose and, in particular, to focus on the implementation of good practices (cost-effective and relevant), wherever possible.

I'll try to think further on this issue. Your comments would be particularly welcome.

Please see below my answers to the other questions on the "strategy of the MDGs after 2015".

1 Have been useful original targets in the mind of the Government, companies and civil society with emphasis on the water crisis and its importance in social and economic development overall?

2. What remains to be done before that date to complete the work begun in 2000?

3. On the assumption that we would like the goals after 2015 to still include a target on water, how should frame us? What would the key progress and success measures?

5. What would you do the Governments?

The water in the development of the Millennium (MDGs) after 2015 strategy: were the original targets useful?

In my last blog post, I promised to further stimulate the discussion with some suggestions on how to answer the five questions. based on my own thoughts, comments received via the blog and direct contact with companies and stakeholders colleagues. Here's the first question:

1 Have been useful original targets in the mind of the Government, companies and civil society with emphasis on the water crisis and its importance in social and economic development overall?

Let me first of all, the three objectives related to the water that it will be the list:

• C 7 a: reduce by half, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water (from the 1990 base year)

• C 7 b: reduce by half, by 2015, the proportion of the population does not have access to basic (from the 1990 base year) sanitation

• 7.5: Proportion of total water used (water resources management)

With regard to hygiene, sanitation and drinking water, the MDGs are useful in several ways.

Statistics on access to water and sanitation have been in existence for many years, but the achievement of the MDGs brought the issue of access firmly on the agenda. It is to ensure that we not just point to a situation, but are looking to undertake a targeted and comprehensive demand-oriented action on the results of the national programmes.

For example, I would like to refer to some particularly important elements, forces and achievements that must be preserved for after 2015:

One is the Toolkit on the MDG acceleration framework developed by UNDP. It provides the framework for a real global approach. In Belize, for example, the plan to improve access to drinking water based on this toolkit not only includes the expansion of water services, but also repair services (including the repair of the rudimentary water systems) and the improvement of the quality of the water. And in the case of sanitation, the plan provides for the expansion of sewage, construction of other systems of improved sanitation, education on good practices of sanitation and hygiene (including the education of children as agents of change of behavior) and strengthening regulatory capacity.

The MDGs on water also helped to align procedures for establishing national priorities against global targets on water supply and sanitation, in case the reform of policies, institutional changes and resource allocation and to link these efforts focused on countries in regional frameworks favourable existing.

It stimulates more collaborative entries, for example, the Council of African Ministers on water (AMCOW), the African Development Bank, the Water Initiative of the European Union, the Programme of the United Nations for development, water and sanitation program-Africa and the World Bank.

Last but not least, he has contributed to ensure coordination/harmonization between objectives, for example in the link of the water-power, energy and environment. Integrated management resources water (HRIM), often discussed, has been implemented. For example, the work of UNEP in the urban areas of DRC - with microfinance at one end of the spectrum prices and the usefulness of the other.

Without the achievement of the MDGs on water and sanitation access, we would certainly not there where we are today.

Comparing targets with the observed real improvements, including improvements to the pre-1990 period, however adds some nuances to this overall positive picture.

Drinking water: annual average number of people who have access to drinking water

Current 1975 - 1991 123 million per year

Objective (goal) 1990-2015 95 million per year

Current 1990-2010 105 million per year

The MDGs and the actual results between 1990 and 2010 (also from 2000 to 2010) are clearly behind conducted from 1975 to 1991 on an annual average. It is possible that the goal was not ambitious. And the light blue section of the graph below: knowledge other improved drinking water faucets from sources, including public standpipes, wells, boreholes and wells dug, is not at the desired level.

Sanitation:

1986-1991 Real 111 million/year

Objective (goal) 1990-2015 115 million per year

1990-2010 Actual 87 million per year

Targets for sanitation was consistent with what was achieved 1985-1991, i.e., in my opinion not too ambitious. but the actual results are nevertheless clearly behind these targets.

In the management of water resources, it seems to be harder to set comparable targets. And the situation has deteriorated rapidly. According to the work carried out by the water resources group 2030, analyzing the 154 major basins catchment/River of the world, we are already remove almost 10% more water for human use, which is permanently available (natural renewal less environmental flows). In 2010, about 15 to 20% of the production of cereals and tubers was a field where reliable and sustainable water supply is less than 50% of the actual withdrawals (McKinsey and 2030 water resources group; Charting the future of water. A new economic framework for decision making; Washington November 2009). Deficits in food production due to drought in 2012 are a stark reminder that natural (Lakes, aquifers) buffer zones have been systematically and more overused in recent decades.

In my opinion, this area was not sufficient attention from the achievement of the MDGs, and the objective formulated for managing water was not sufficiently operational to make an impact.

My answers to other questions about "Water in the Millennium after 2015 strategy" can also be interested:

2. What remains to be done before that date to complete the work begun in 2000?

3. On the assumption that we would like the goals after 2015 to still include a target on water, how should frame us? What would the key progress and success measures?

4. What role and responsibility of the private sector to take delivering these objectives?

5. What would you do the Governments?

 

The water in the development of the Millennium (MDGs) after 2015 strategy: what remains to be done until 2015?

The second question:

2. What remains to be done before that date to complete the work begun in 2000?

The goals declared to the access to drinking water has been made a year ago. But there is whether it is in no way a reason to stop the ongoing and future efforts. My proposal, based on the discussion with others, is to set a new goal for the remaining years, at least 120 million people each year access to drinking water, it is to say, the resulting figures 1975-91.

On the other hand, realistically the goal of remediation is unreachable. We must therefore carefully analyze and ask why it is. At the same time however, we must emphasize the implementation of this goal, move forward, at least as regards the annual people additional 115 million annually to get access in the remaining years of the achievement of the MDGs, as originally envisaged.

Finally, in the field of the management of water resources, the priority must be to make the goal of "the water used" exploitable. My suggestion, based on the experience with the work of the 2030 water resources group, is as follows: use the existing data on the shortcomings of the water in each watershed / basin (IFPRI and the WRG) to identify and set goals to reduce the annual withdrawals in accordance with the sustainable supply. (I'll discuss this more in detail in question 3).

This issue is too urgent to wait until 2016 to begin to take action. In the Global report may 2013 just published by the World Economic Forum, the crisis of water supply risk has increased the potential impact of ranking on the second position. In addition, the problem is listed as a societal risk, not as a first risk and prior to any environment.

My answers to other questions about "Water in the Millennium after 2015 strategy" can also be interested:

1 Have been useful original targets in the mind of the Government, companies and civil society with emphasis on the water crisis and its importance in social and economic development overall?

3. On the assumption that we would like the goals after 2015 to still include a target on water, how should frame us? What would the key progress and success measures?

4. What role and responsibility of the private sector to take delivering these objectives?

5. What would you do the Governments?

The water in the development of the Millennium (MDGs) after 2015 strategy: what are the goals for the future?

This post is about question 3:

Which of the original MDGs targets must be kept, abandoned or added? Assuming that you would like to than the targets after 2015 to include a target still on the water, how would frame you? What would the key progress and success measures?

Firstly, a few words to the proposals below in context. Water and its different uses (including to grow food, to generate prosperity for the daily life and survival of individuals) is essential for all human societies around the world; It is a central element of the ecosystem of the Earth and water for survival is a human right. It therefore deserves special attention in the discussion of the 2015 Millennium development goals.

My proposal is not to create new targets related to water, but instead, we should strengthen and clarify existing instruments.

Make sure first, objective access to more ambitious water safety in the achievement of the MDGs. We must bear in mind that access to safe water is a man good, that is to say, it has a special status compared to some of the other objectives. With 95 million additional people access to drinking water, we could reach the target of 100% by 2030. I think we should be more ambitious and try and achieve the 100% coverage for water already by 2025 or earlier. This objective should be complemented with guarantees that the needs of fresh water (25-50 litres per person, per day, with the quantity to be defined in accordance with the local situation, the climate, etc.) will be provided free of charge to those who cannot afford it.

There may be also necessary to define a regional focus to these efforts. According to a study recently published by the United Nations program for the environment (UNEP), about 51 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo - three quarters of the country's population - have no access to clean water, even if the country holds more than half of the Africa water reserves.

In addition, we should look for opportunities to establish quality objectives. On the one hand, to improve the quality of the water supplied (in many places, it has deteriorated) and on the other hand, to improve the type of access (from a village well at faucets in the home). Today, more than a third of what is considered the access to drinking water still comes from public taps, terminals fountains, tube wells, boreholes and dug wells.

Given also speed up urbanization, the goal of sanitation must be set even more ambitious way and implemented more rigorously. The question of access to sanitation is particularly complex and needs further analysis. What should be included in this analysis and in goal, is the maintenance of the existing structures as well as the development of new products.

One the greatest challenges for access to drinking water and sanitation, including the maintenance, renewal and extension, is the cost - with an estimated $ 27 trillion infrastructure spending needed by 2030 all. It is the equivalent of about one-third of global annual GDP today. The key to the success measures should include looking at the side funding too.

Management of water resources: the objectives must be managed, but formulated in a much clearer manner. Discovered the water is already a very serious problem today ' hui. If no action is taken, this may seriously endanger the food security, economic growth (water, energy and industry) and finally also the quantity and quality of drinking water.

For example, in Bangladesh, massive over-pumping of groundwater and resulting from falling water tables have led to an increase in important and dangerous natural arsenic dissolved in the water. Some of my ideas are influenced by my work as a catalyst 2030 water resources group (there are also discovered by watershed estimates), but there are other ways to address the problems. For the Group of water resources, there may be a "result" and "facilitator" to articulate. This takes us into the realm of exploitable multi-stakeholder partnerships with Governments, as those put in place supported by WRG locally.

The water is local, and therefore the global goals must be relevant at the local level. In addition, the goal for a result of better management of the resources is much more difficult to identify and measure progress toward a goal for the first two goals (drinking water, sanitation). My proposal to provide a direction and to reflect on the new lens formula is to line up fresh water withdrawals in the main basins catchment/River sustainable return of supply (natural renewal less environmental flows).

These objectives should be implemented in a dynamic environment, characterized by growing needs of water and in the link between the energy of the water. No doubt, learning in water to date suggests that focusing on the improvement of management of water resources (the "how" rather than the "what") may be the key.

Given this perspective, it will be also important to provide tools that ensure that the measures taken are actually relevant to the gap between the withdrawals and sustainable supply (not pretend, not in piecemeal) and that they are cost-effective.

Please let me know your thoughts.

My answers to other questions about "Water in the Millennium after 2015 strategy" can also be interested:

1 Have been useful original targets in the mind of the Government, companies and civil society with emphasis on the water crisis and its importance in social and economic development overall?

2. What remains to be done before that date to complete the work begun in 2000?

4. What role and responsibility of the private sector to take delivering these objectives?

5. What would you do the Governments?

Quality: Most Pressing Global Water Problem

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As the purpose of this blog is to facilitate an informed debate about the water challenge, I am particularly pleased to be able to share the insights of eminent experts such as Asit K Biswas. Professor Biswas is Founder of the Third World Centre for Water Management in Mexico, and Distinguished visiting professor of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore and has contributed to this blog before

In recent years water has been receiving considerable attention from the global media, policy-makers and the general public. However, this attention has not always been on the most pressing water problems that the world is facing at present or likely to face in the coming decades. The current concern has been that the world is soon going to run out of water. In fact, publications on the impending global water crisis due to physical scarcity of water are truly a growth industry! Having pointed out that such a crisis is inevitable, people then argue that as the scarcities become acute there is likely to be wars between the countries because of shortages of water in many parts of the world.

If one puts “water crisis” in Google, some 132 million items are identified. If “water wars” is used, it brings 74.7 million results! Concerns with both of these issues, like the universe, are expanding constantly!

My view is somewhat different. The real long-term water problem the world is facing is going to be not because of physical scarcity of this resource but due to continued deterioration of its quality. While managing water quality is a serious issue in both developed and developing countries, the future prospects are far more serious for developing countries compared to their developed counterparts.

In 1858, when Joseph Bazalgette constructed the sewer system of London, the Thames River had already become an open sewer. More than 20,000 people died because of a cholera outbreak that year. This heralded the beginning of a new era of safe water supply and proper wastewater management in the developed world.

Unfortunately, however, many developed country metropolises have not updated their sewer systems that were constructed decades ago, especially in terms of uncontrolled leaks and also for separation of rainwater and wastewater. In addition, lack of timely investments has meant that the capacities of sewage infrastructures that were built many decades ago can no longer handle the extra load because of increasing flows due to higher population and industrial activities. Consequently, the old systems can no longer handle the new and higher requirements efficiently.

Currently, some 30 million tonnes of wastewater are discharged to the Thames River without proper treatment each week when there is rain. This has triggered a threat from the European Commission for heavy fines. The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 850 billion gallons of untreated wastewater are discharged to water bodies of the nation which are causing 1.6-3.5 million illnesses annually.

Bad as though it is for many cities of the developed world, the situation is far worse for developing countries. In recent decades, highly inflated figures have been put out by international organizations which give a false sense of achievement for both people not having access to safe water supply and also not having proper wastewater treatment. It is now claimed that “only” 780 million people do not have access to safe water. Sadly, work of the Third World Centre for Water Management shows that at least 2.5 billion people do not have access to water that is safe to drink without any health risks.

The Centre further estimates that only about 10 percent of the people in Latin America have access to acceptable wastewater treatment and disposal facilities. The situation is likely to be the same for the Asian developing countries and somewhat worse in Africa.

Let us consider only two major megacities of the developing world: Mexico City and Delhi. Mexico City pumps its untreated wastewater to Mezquital Valley and Delhi dumps its untreated wastewater to the River Yamuna, and both claim that they have adequate “sanitation”!

Fortunately for the citizens of Delhi there is some hope. On 10th October 2012, a bench of the Supreme Court of India expressed its intense disappointment with the present situation. It said: “It is unfortunate that huge public funds were spent without showing any improvement in the water quality of Yamuna”. It then went on to say: “It has been brought to our attention that despite the Centre spending more than Rs 1,062 crores (1 crore=10 million) in addition to amount being spent by local authorities in Delhi, Harayan and U.P., the pollution of Yamuna has increased by the day”.

Earlier the Court had noted that the Government did not have the “will” and “determination” to address the “self-made” problem. The Court was shocked to note that the Government admitted that it has no programme to “arrest the pollution on account of fecal coliform”, even though it admitted the situation was “alarming”.

Sadly, the situation described above for the River Yamuna and Mexico City are representative of deteriorating water quality conditions all over the developing world. One would indeed be hard pressed to find a single river or lake in or around any urban centre of a developing country which is even suitable for bathing or washing clothes. For example, the Indian standards require that the total coliform count in the river water must not exceed 500 MPN/100 litres if it is to be used for bathing. At many locations of the Yamuna, coliform counts are in the stratosphere, an incredible 17,000 million MPN/100 ml, which means these stretches of the river are simply equivalent to open sewers.

The water quality conditions of the Yamuna are not an exceptional case for the developing world. While these conditions can be better or worse for other rivers, the fact remains that they are all heavily polluted with known and unknown contaminants. The health and environmental costs of such contamination are mostly unknown at present. However, they are already very substantial and increasing over time. In some countries, they are estimated to be 4-6 percent of the national GDP.

There is no question that the most serious and critical water problem that the world is facing at present is the steady deterioration of quality. Until and unless the society wakes up to the seriousness of the problem and appropriate countermeasures are taken, the overall health and societal costs can only continue to increase. Thus, business as usual is no longer a solution.

Insights from antiquity: Oman and the art of water pricing

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We rarely value what we don’t pay for. This is an unfortunate paradox, but it is also a human reality. And for water, this means that until we set a price the world will continue to overlook its essential value.

This is an issue that I have touched on previously in relation to my firm belief that water should be regarded as a human right but not a free good.

The idea of pricing water, which is sometimes viewed as controversial, can sometimes be mistaken as a very modern concept. Yet its true origins can be traced back to antiquity to the Aflaj water systems in Oman. The Aflaj is an ancient network of subterranean water channels originally built by farmers more than 4,500 years ago to irrigate fields and supply water to villages for household use. To this day the system provides more than 60% of the country’s fresh water supply and irrigates around 55% of its cropped land. It is also drinkable, with many Omanis still preferring the Aflaj water to pipe water.

Yet the real genius of the Omani Aflaj is not just in the inventiveness and efficiency of its irrigation system, but in the story of tradable water rights and the power of private ownership that it provides.

The system works by giving water a real value. First of all, only naturally renewing water is tapped. Using gravity, this water is channelled from underground sources or springs often from a distance of over many kilometres (the longest is 17 kilometres) through a simple system that is maintained by its joint owners, who each hold a defined share of the water.

For the first 50 meters or so, access to drinking water is free to everyone, including passing travellers. The water then goes to the mosque, and is free for ceremonial washing. A certain share of the water is also allocated to schools. After this point, the water becomes private property. Water entitlements are mostly measured by time of use: days, hours, half hours and minutes, which are traditionally measured by sundials during the day and by the movement of the stars at night.

Creating a price for water use not only creates a market. It also creates an incentive for sustainable and efficient use. Farmers are able to channel their share of water at specified times on certain days. These entitlements can also be traded at weekly auctions, where they can be either sold or temporarily rented out when not required. The price of the Aflaj water is not fixed but rather changes constantly to reflect variations in supply according to the season, the location and the type of usage. And crucially, the money exchanged in trading water remains within the community, allowing all costs for maintaining and developing the Aflaj to be recovered.

With the gap between global water withdrawals and renewals widening, the story of the Aflaj has several important lessons for us today. Giving water a price not only creates a mechanism that promotes greater efficiency in the supply, it also re-establishes respect and shared responsibility for water among end-users. The Omani Aflaj is one celebrated example of the contemporary relevance of ancient practices. But I would very much welcome readers to share any other examples from around the world that also deserve recognition.

L'eau dans la stratégie du millénaire après 2015 : participer à la discussion

In July 2012, the Secretary general of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon announced that 27 members of a high level group advises on the overall framework of development beyond 2015, the date deadline of the objectives of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Two leading manufacturers have been invited by the Secretary-General to join this important group, Ms. Betty Maina, Chief Executive of the Kenya Manufacturers Association and Mr. Paul Polman, Chief Executive Officer of Unilever.

In order to reach out to the business community, Paul asked me to act as an Ambassador for the water to help assemble a broader and more coherent global presentation. Under this approach, I hope that we will be able to benefit from advice of members of the Global Compact water UN mandate.

At the same time, I would like to take this opportunity to launch a broad consultation on how the world should look to the water after 2015, including look at what strategies related to water would help the international community to focus on issues more important in global development efforts after 2015.

After the first two meetings, the Panel arrived at the point where it begins to consider of which the original MDGs targets should be maintained, has dropped or added. Here are the questions Paul asked me to comment on.

The water of the MDGs related is focused on access to drinking water and sanitation, which is to reduce by half, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to drinking water and sanitation (target 7 c), as well as on the water as part of efforts to reverse the loss of environmental resources.

In the weeks that follow, we will address the following questions (click on each to see my proposed answers):

1 Have been useful original targets in the mind of the Government, companies and civil society with emphasis on the water crisis and its importance in social and economic development overall?

2. What remains to be done before that date to complete the work begun in 2000?

3. On the assumption that we would like the goals after 2015 to still include a target on water, how should frame us? What would the key progress and success measures?

4. What role and responsibility of the private sector to take delivering these objectives?

5. What would you do the Governments?

I invite you to start commenting now and provide the substance that can help to answer the five questions. And in the coming weeks, I'll share a few initial ideas for discussion.

Speaking to Janine Benyus, biomimicry-specialist American biologist

Biologist, American co-founder of Biomimicry 3.8, world's leading consultancies and training in biomimicry, Janine Benyus has popularised the concept of biomimicry in 1997. It highlights the limitations of our civilization energy-intensive model and the need to learn from nature. The approach that it advocates intends to reconcile progress and respect for the environment. Janine Benyus explains his vision of biomimicry...

"I set the biomimicry as being art to draw shapes, processes and ecosystems in nature to innovate sustainably. Indeed, as scientists, we have everything to learn strategies for living. This principle is manifest, but yet far from clear... Industrial civilization believed to be able to free itself from nature and even exceed. We we're raw powerful, at the head of an infallible technological arsenal. However, at the beginning of 21st century, the man arrived at a turning point in its evolution. Nature tolerance limits have been reached, leading us to this crucial question: "how to live on our planet without destroying the.
While we have no known or wanted to do, nature always has. She always imagined solutions for solving of the problems that we, ourselves, face. What's better than 3.8 billion years of experience in sustainable development? It is rather a good CV! If science has very often copied nature, it is in has not duplicated the principles of survival. This is not only to copy an animal because its form attracted us, but draw on his philosophy of efficient and sustainable production. We must consider these organisms as experts. They were able to do everything we need, without using fossil fuels, without polluting the planet or mortgage their future. Which model best hope? It is sufficient to observe the animals, plants and micro-organisms to realize that these are experienced engineers and that they have found what works and especially what is on Earth.
Many examples are present in nature and are rich in teaching. If you want to know how to filter salt water for example, just ask the sea turtles or even our own kidneys that are doing this without resorting to electricity! Indeed, each cell, each red blood cell of our body is hourglass-shaped pores called aquaporins. These filter water on one side and leave the other dissolved substances. It is a kind of non-reverse osmosis. A process that interested companies, which have already begun to experiment with it. What need us? More biomimicry. designers, scientists, engineers and other business leaders that will appeal to the biomimicry to solve our energy crisis, our food problems and security, the toxicity of our materials. It is to meet this need we receive now applications to participate in our program of specialization in biomimicry, lasting eight months, including a session will take place in Europe (Netherlands) in the spring of 2013. Our participants, like so many others, include the biomimicry is just a new way to see and valuing nature, it is also the path of our survival. "Source: SUEZ environment Magazine n ° 11, November 2012

 

Initiative of the week: protect your beaches with ocean Initiatives

 

Emblematic event of Surfrider Foundation Europe, the ocean Initiatives are awareness to water waste in the form of operation of cleaning the beaches, shoreline and seabed.
In partnership with SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT, the 2013 edition will take place from Thursday 21 to Sunday, March 24. Feel free to participate in the cleaning of a place you discovering it on the following website: http://www.initiativesoceanes.org/index.php

 

Initiative of the week: Social Game, Get Water

Currently, the big trend on the web is the explosion of social games. Social games are created to be played online with friends. They often use social networks and allow players to share the gaming experience. Hosted on crowd funding Indiegogo.com platform, social game "Get Water" addresses in a fun way access issues to water in the world. Developed by the social gaming Decode Global Platform, this mini game offers Internet users to help a young girl to an emerging country to collect drinking water so she can return to school in the most quickly. UNICEF Canada and the association of Women for Water are partners in this beautiful initiative...

Know the past of the Delta offers new ideas forward

Translate Request has too much data Parameter name: request Translate Request has too much data Parameter name: request  Change in Delta land cover, early 1800s to early 2000s. Graphic by SFEI-ASC

By Alison Whipple
San Francisco Estuary Institute-Aquatic Science Center

Teetering atop a haystack to get his bearings, Sacramento County Surveyor Edwin Sherman observed “dense tules and willows” lining the sloughs that wove through “large tule plains and some grass.” The haystack also afforded him a dry bed at night when high tides inundated the surrounding wetlands of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

It was August 1859. Sherman was measuring the widths of the sloughs and noting the tidal patterns of the eastern Delta. He later recounted those details in a court case determining whether claimants to the Rancho Sanjon de los Moquelumnes Mexican land grant would retain title now that California was part of the United States.

Little did Sherman know that more than 150 years later his testimony and maps would help reveal what the Delta looked like and how it worked back then.

Scientists with the San Francisco Estuary Institute-Aquatic Science Center wanted to know. A clearer window into the past would help scientists, managers and policymakers envision a Delta of the future – one that would support native species and improve ecosystem function under climate change and continued changes in land and water use.

Alison Whipple examines historical maps at the California State Lands Commission in Sacramento, Aug. 19, 2009. Photo by Erin Beller/SFEI-ASC

In 2009, the Institute, with funding from the California Department of Fish and Game, began a collaborative effort to reconstruct in maps, text and graphics what had been the heart of the vast wetland system in the San Francisco Estuary and Central Valley. The resulting report on the historical ecology of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta was released Sept. 13. The research already has inspired collaboration on an “interactive map” of the historical Delta, between KQED-San Francisco’s science program “Quest,” Stanford University’s Bill Lane Center for the American West, and the Institute.

Getting to know a place as it was more than 160 years ago is daunting, but also incredibly rewarding. So much of the Delta’s native landscape has been erased or rearranged. Extensive reclamation of marshes for farming, massive water pumping, and upstream diversions to supply more than 25 million Californians and millions of acres of Central Valley farmland have profoundly affected the Delta’s native ecosystem. With only fragments of native habitat remaining, it is difficult to imagine how the pieces once fit together. Sherman would have a hard time recognizing the place, though 1,100 miles of levees would offer him many high and dry vantage points.

To reconstruct the pre-developed Delta of the early 1800s, the research team collected a wide variety of sources from more than 40 archives and institutions and numerous online databases. The team combed for clues in old navigational charts, government land surveys, hand-drawn maps, photos, diaries – you name it. No single source told the whole story. Together, the thousands of bits of evidence revealed Delta-wide landscape patterns and local details of a complex and productive ecosystem, compared with today’s largely homogenous and poorly functioning one.

Early Delta maps showed features such as forests along rivers where orchards now stand and vast lakes that today are only depressions. Aerial photos from the 1930s also provided pieces of the puzzle. Tonal signatures in the soil indicated former channels – waterways too small to be shown in early Delta maps.

Tidal marsh along the San Joaquin River, 1905. Photo by Grove Karl Gilbert/USGS

Hand-written and oral accounts often helped fill in the details of what the place was like on the ground. Worn and yellowed pages found in a state archive contained a hunter’s story of becoming lost one winter night around 1850. Hiking in the dark with dead ducks strung over his shoulders, he and his companion thrashed through “a vast wilderness of tules 10 to 15 feet in height.” They fell into numerous ponds, including one that “proved to be from 100 to 300 yards in width, as near as we could judge. The water was very cold and often waist-deep.”

As with the Sherman testimony, lawyers of the 1800s sometimes asked witnesses the same questions researchers today have about the past Delta: How deep is the water? What is the range of tides and how far do they extend? What is the width of that slough?

Patterns in the historical landscape began to emerge as one source led to another and accounts from travelers and surveyors clarified confusing features on maps. Using Geographic Information Systems software, the team synthesized the many pieces of information into a map of the early 1800s Delta habitat types.

One striking aspect of the map is the capillary-like networks of numerous tidal channels that dissipated into the wetlands. Most of those have been filled in, while the main sloughs and rivers delineating the Delta islands remain. Interestingly, the ratio of marsh to open water has essentially reversed, as only 3 percent of the historical wetland acreage exists today.

Overall, the report describes the extent, distribution and characteristics of historical habitat types – tidal wetlands, waterways, lakes and ponds, and riparian forest – within approximately 1,250 square miles of the Delta. It identifies three primary landscape types. The central Delta featured tidal freshwater wetlands of tule and willow with numerous winding channels. The north Delta was comprised of broad tule-filled flood basins rimmed with forested rivers and interspersed with lakes. And the south Delta contained perennial and seasonal wetlands with lakes, ponds, small channels, and riparian forest along the larger river branches.

The report and map do not present a blueprint for restoring the Delta that once was. Rather, they lay a foundation for understanding how the ecosystem once worked. Knowing what worked well for the native species is key to the Bay Delta Conservation Plan and other habitat restoration efforts underway today. It can help managers think about how individual restoration projects can add up to larger, functional landscapes.

In a follow-up investigation known as the Delta Landscapes Project, the Institute will link the historical landscape types – flood basin, riparian forest and such – to ecological functions and spotlight opportunities for supporting these relationships going forward. The multidisciplinary project team includes professors Peter Moyle, Jeff Mount and Jay Lund of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences.

The Delta of the future will not look like it does today or as it did in the early 1800s. But knowing how the natural features once fit together will aid decisions about what elements might be desired in future landscapes.

Alison Whipple is lead author of the Delta report, Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Historical Ecology Investigation: Exploring Pattern and Process. She joins the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences this fall as a doctoral student in hydrologic sciences.

References and further reading

Atwater BF, Conard SG, Dowden JN, et al. 1979. History, landforms, and vegetation of the estuary’s tidal marshes. In San Francisco Bay, the urbanized estuary: investigations into the natural history of San Francisco Bay and Delta with reference to the influence of man. Fifty-eighth annual meeting of the Pacific Division/American Association for the Advancement of Science held at San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California, June 12-16, 1977, ed. T. John Conomos, 493 p. San Francisco, Calif.: AAAS, Pacific Division.

California Department of Fish and Game. 2011. DRAFT Conservation Strategy for Restoration of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Ecological Management Zone and the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valley Regions. Ecosystem Restoration Program.

Garone PF. 2011. The Fall and Rise of the Wetlands of California’s Great Central Valley. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Greiner CM. 2010. Principles for Strategic Conservation and Restoration. Puget Sound Nearshore Ecosystem Restoration Project Report No. 2010-01. Published by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Olympia, Washington and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Seattle, WA.

Grossinger RM. 2012. Napa Valley Historical Ecology Atlas: Exploring a Landscape of Transformation and Resilience. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Grossinger RM. 2005. Documenting local landscape change: the San Francisco Bay area historical ecology project. In The Historical Ecology Handbook: A Restorationist’s Guide to Reference Ecosystems, ed. Dave Egan and Evelyn A. Howell, 425-442. Washington, DC: Island Press.

Hanak E, Lund J, Dinar A, Gray B, Howitt R, Mount JF, Moyle P, Thompson B. 2011. Managing California’s Water: From Conflict to Reconciliation. Public Policy Institute of California.

Hart, John. 2010. The Once and Future Delta: Mending the Broken Heart of California. Bay Nature.

Moyle PB, Lund JR, Bennett WA, et al. 2010. Habitat Variability and Complexity in the Upper San Francisco Estuary. San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science 8(3):1-24.

Simenstad C, Reed D, Ford M. 2006. When is restoration not? Incorporating landscape-scale processes to restore self-sustaining ecosystems in coastal wetland restoration. Ecological Engineering 26:27-39.

Sommer L. 2012. California’s Deadlocked Delta: Can We Bring Back What We’ve Lost? KQED QUEST Northern California.

Sommer L, Whipple AA, McGhee G. 2012. Envisioning California’s Delta As it Was. KQED QUEST Northern California, San Francisco Estuary Institute-Aquatic Science Center, and the Bill Lane Center for the American West.

The Bay Institute (TBI). 1998. From the Sierra to the Sea: The Ecological History of the San Francisco Bay-Delta Watershed. The Bay Institute of San Francisco.

Thompson J. 1957. The Settlement Geography of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, California. Geography, Stanford, CA.

Whipple AA, Grossinger RM, Rankin D, Stanford B, Askevold RA . 2012. Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Historical Ecology Investigation: Exploring Pattern and Process. Prepared for the California Department of Fish and Game and Ecosystem Restoration Program. A Report of SFEI-ASC’s Historical Ecology Program, SFEI-ASC Publication #672, San Francisco Estuary Institute-Aquatic Science Center, Richmond, CA.

Climate change and California water – past, present and future

AppId is over the quota AppId is over the quota  Folsom Lake, 1976. California Department of Water Resources

Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.
– Charles Dudley Warner, 1897

By Jay R. Lund

Talk of climate change and water in California is fraught with handwringing and delusions. Much discussion borders on alarmist or seems to presume magical abilities to precisely plan and prepare for a future climate.

Here are some observations – based on climate statistics and the physics, economics and history of water in California – that may put some concerns in perspective:

1. Californians have experienced abrupt climate change before. Most immigrants to California in the 1850s experienced abrupt climate change, because they came mostly from humid parts of the United States and Europe with wet summers. It took more than 70 years for this society to develop laws, institutions and infrastructure suited to California’s climate (Pisani, 1982; Kelley 1986). Many newcomers adapted to the foreign climate and prospered, as with the development of irrigated agriculture. Still, the process of climate adaptation has been politically intense and lengthy – and continues to this day.

2. Climate change is not the only game-changer. In the past 100 years, California water management has changed tremendously, driven by changes in population, economic structure, technology, and social and environmental objectives (Hanak et al . 2011). Climate change is just one more big driver – and may not be the biggest one (Vörösmarty 2000).

3. We will not know the extent of climate change until long after the change has occurred. Even in an unchanging climate, it takes several hundred years of data to firmly answer such questions as, “How large is the ‘100-year flood?’” With a changing climate it will take decades to make good statistical estimates, even of changes in annual average precipitation and streamflow (Klemes 2000). And there is no reason to expect the climate to stop changing.

4. Climate change is now. In the last 50 years, California has seen a shifting share of runoff from the spring to the winter (Aguado et al. 1992).  Also, sea level has risen about 1 foot in the last 100 years. Both trends are consistent with climate warming.

5. California is prone to massive climate change. In medieval times, parts of California experienced extreme droughts lasting more than 100 years (Stine 1994).

6. Expanding reservoirs is not necessarily useful for climate change. In a much drier climate, such as California experienced in medieval times, existing reservoirs would never fill and expanded storage capacity would be useless (Harou et al. 2010). Climate warming will reduce seasonal snowpack, but with some changes in reservoir management, existing large reservoirs on most of California’s rivers can largely accommodate seasonal shifts in runoff (Connell-Buck et al. 2011). Climate warming will be somewhat costly, but not catastrophic for most conventional water storage operations (Willis et al. 2010; Madani and Lund 2010). Change in total precipitation is more important than warming alone. The physical, economic and ecological instability of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta probably poses more risk to California’s water supply than climate warming (Lund et al. 2010).

7. Handwringing is not adaptation. Climate change introduces uncertainties, but California water management has always involved immense uncertainties. Effective water management adaptations to climate change emerge from comprehensive analysis of water markets, conjunctive use of ground and surface waters, water conservation, and from re-operation of some reservoirs (Harou et al. 2010; Tanaka et al. 2006; Medellin et al. 2008; Hanak and Lund 2011; Ragatz 2012).

The key to water management adaptation for climate change is mostly good management. But, as always with California water, good management will involve controversy and require both political and technical leadership (Crawford and Herrick 2006)..

Jay Lund is the Ray B. Krone Professor of Environmental Engineering at UC Davis and director of the university’s Center for Watershed Sciences.

Sources and further reading
Aguado, E., D. Cayan, L. Riddle, and M. Roos (1992), “Climate fluctuations and the timing of West Coast streamflow,” Journal of Climate, Vol. 5, December, pp. 1468-1483.

Connell-Buck, C.R., J. Medellín-Azuara, J.R. Lund, and K. Madani, “Adapting California’s water system to warm vs. dry climates,” Climatic Change, Vol. 109 (Suppl 1), pp. S133–S149, 2011.

Crawford, J. and J. Herrick, “Intelligent Engineering: William Hammond Hall and the state engineering department,” Sacramento History, Journal of the Sacramento County Historical Society, Vol. VI , No. 1-4, 2006.

Hanak, E., J. Lund, A. Dinar, B. Gray, R. Howitt, J. Mount, P. Moyle, and B. Thompson, Managing California’s Water: From Conflict to Reconciliation, Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco, CA, 500 pp., February 2011.

Harou, J.J., J. Medellin-Azuara, T. Zhu, S.K. Tanaka, J.R. Lund, S. Stine, M.A. Olivares, and M.W. Jenkins, “Economic consequences of optimized water management for a prolonged, severe drought in California,” Water Resources Research, doi:10.1029/2008WR007681, Vol. 46, 2010

Kelley, R. 1998. Battling the Inland Sea. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Klemes V. 2000. “Design Implications of Climate Change.” In Common Sense and Other Heresies: Selected Papers on Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering, ed. V. Klemes (Cambridge, Ontario: Canadian Water Resources Association).

Lund, J., E. Hanak, W. Fleenor, W. Bennett, R. Howitt, J. Mount, and P. Moyle, Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, February 2010.

Madani, K. and J.R. Lund, “Estimated Impacts of Climate Warming on California’s High Elevation Hydropower,” Climatic Change, Vol. 102, No. 3-4, pp. 521–538, October 2010.

Medellin-Azuara, J., J.J. Harou, M.A. Olivares, K. Madani-Larijani, J.R. Lund, R.E. Howitt, S.K. Tanaka, M.W. Jenkins, and T. Zhu, “Adaptability and Adaptations of California’s Water Supply System to Dry Climate Warming,” Climatic Change, Vol. 87, Sup.1, March, pp. S75-S90, 2008.

Pisani, D. 1984. From the Family Farm to Agribusiness: The Irrigation Crusade in California, 1850–1931. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Roos, M. (2003), The Effects of Global Climate Change on California Water Resources, A report to the California Energy Commission’s Public Interest Energy Research Program (PIER), Sacramento, September 2002.

Stine, S. 1994. “Extreme and Persistent Drought in California and Patagonia during Medieval Time.” Nature 369: 546–49.

Tanaka, S.K., T. Zhu, J.R. Lund, R.E. Howitt, M.W. Jenkins, M.A. Pulido, M. Tauber, R.S. Ritzema and I.C. Ferreira, “Climate Warming and Water Management Adaptation for California,” Climatic Change, Vol. 76, No. 3-4, pp. 361-387, June 2006.

Vörösmarty, C. J., P. Green, J. Salisbury, and R. B. Lammers. 2000. “Global Water Resources: Vulnerability from Climate Change and Population Growth.” Science 289(5477): 284–88.

Willis, A.D., J.R. Lund, E. S. Townsley, and Beth Faber, “Climate Change and Flood Operations in the Sacramento Basin, California,” San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science, Vol. 9, No. 2, 18 pp., July, 2011.

Notice
This winter, the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences is presenting a weekly speaker series on California water policy. The public is welcome to attend.

Schedule of speakers

Videos of talks available on iTunes and YouTube

Fish and Game name change reflects the broader mission

Joshua offers was a passion for wild pigs, as shown here, in Mendocino County, in January 2012. Photo: Dan Schroeder

Jacob Katz arises a lunker rainbow trout on the river of the Trinity in November 2011. Photo by Carson Jeffres

By Joshua and Jacob Katz, UC Davis Center for Watershed science

The California Department of Fish and game is one of the few agencies of State with a name by sympathetic nature. Bent rods come to mind. Hunting and fishing adventures tickets outdoor and family liaison and licensed to literally bring home the bacon.

It is not surprising that Governor Jerry Brown set fur flying earlier this fall, when he signed a draft law replacing the "game" with "Wildlife" in name by the use of the Agency. The Association of California for recreational fishing, among other sports groups, that the Governor and the legislature have launched the hunters and fishermen in the van. They consider the change of name as a surrender urban environmental and animal rights activists determined to break with the traditional focus of the Department on the hunting and fishing.

Some environmentalists say the change of name, which shall enter into force on January 1, will help the Department move away from practices that promote interests "hook-and-bullet" at the expense of non-game species - those not hunted for sport or food.

In truth, the Department logo makeover is neither victory nor defeat and other. It reflects rather a continuous and long-term expansion in the responsibilities of stewardship of the Ministry of natural resources of California.

The expansion of the mission has multiple causes. They range from the increasing urbanization of California, the increasing complexity and the controversy in its ecosystems, advances in the science of the environment, of the Court of environmental decision-making and climate change. For more than 20 years, these and other factors have led constantly state fish and game managers to an "ecosystem" approach that enjoys a wide range of users species and resources, payment of license hunters for bird watchers.

Ecosystem-based management recognizes a wide range of interactions within biological communities, including the hunting, fishing and other human activities. The approach is consistent with the Department's mission statement: "to"manage fish, wildlife and resources and the habitats upon which they depend for their ecological values and for their use and enjoyment by the public of California."

In addition to issuing permits and hunting and fishing regulations, the Department draws up trout in hatcheries, fish stocks in lakes and rivers, fight against poaching, manages the reserves of the State and supervises the efforts of habitat preservation, among others. The new law does not change the name of the Gaming Commission, which adopts regulations of sport fishing and hunting, and defines the rights of licence and California Fish.

Certain policies of the Department are in contradiction with the best science and holistic management. For example, the use of lead shot - the traditional favorite for many hunters - is still permissible for some species of waterfowl such as doves and rabbits, but no other game like it poisoned pets. In addition, the Department's practice 80-year-old plantation of the hatchery historically Alpine Lakes trout contributed to the decline of frogs native and other wild animals. The money spent on the costly aerial drops of FRY of could go instead to the increase in fishing opportunities more accessible Lakes at low altitude and streams.

Legislation that triggers the change of name, 2402 AB by Assemblyman Jared Huffman, also reinforces the use of the Ministry of science in the development of policies that protect entire ecosystems instead of individual species.

The involvement of the Department in the restoration of the Cosumnes near Sacramento River is an example clear and effective advantages of science-based ecosystem management.

Since 1997, state fish and game officials have worked with landowners to restore habitat for the seasonal floodplain for threatened salmon and other species. The Ministry, the Nature Conservancy and a few breeders sewn together various parcels of land to form the Cosumnes River Preserve. The agreement paved the way for UC Davis researchers to show how ecological restoration can reach several victories of native fish and wildlife species, for the management of water and agriculture.

Research has shown that opening of sections of the levees of the river for the seasonal flooding produces multiple benefits: local aquifers for irrigation and drinking water, reduce the risk of flooding to landowners downstream and offering a superb for juvenile rearing habitat.

Most of the flood plains of the California was isolated behind the dams, which were built to protect the homes and crops of the flood. Before the dams were built, winter and spring flooding in the Central Valley has swept the young, ocean related to the salmon on the flood plains, where they find abundant food, slowly, water and few predators. Drained flood plains, the fish would return to the River, well fed, and worthy of their intense migration to the Pacific ocean.

Fish and Game involvement for Cosumnes River gave its managers and other resources, hands-on science-based organizations need to create Habitat in floodplains in the Central Valley and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Already, managers use research to support ecosystem restoration efforts in the Yolo bypass and San Joaquin River.

These efforts will give the Department more new uniform patches and paper to header to display the next year when the Agency officially became the "California Department of fish and wildlife."

Further reading

California Assembly Bill 2402

Cosumnes research group

CA Jeffres, DD Opperman, Moyle P. 2008. Ephemeral floodplain habitats provide better conditions of growth of juvenile Chinook salmon in a river in California. Biology of the environment of the fish. 83 (4)

Whitener P Moyle, PK Crain, k. 2007. Trends in the use of A restored California plain of inundation of native and exotic fish. The estuary of San Francisco and the Science of the watershed. 5 (3)

Getting through the dry times

AppId is over the quota AppId is over the quota  California’s extensive network of reservoirs, canals and aqueducts facilitates water marketing. Source: Managing California’s Water, From Conflict to Reconciliation, PPIC, 2011

By Ellen Hanak and Elizabeth Stryjewski

This week, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) released a new report that provides a checkup on California’s progress with two innovative water management tools:  water marketing and groundwater banking.  These tools are part of a modern approach that will enable California to manage its scarce water resources more flexibly and sustainably.

Water marketing involves the temporary, long-term, or permanent transfer of water rights in exchange for compensation. Such transfers can lessen the economic and environmental costs of drought and also help accommodate longer-term shifts in the patterns of water demand.  Groundwater banking is another cost-effective tool:  it involves the deliberate storage of surface water in aquifers during relatively wet years, for retrieval in dry years.

During the late 2000s, California experienced a multiyear drought—the perfect opportunity to see whether the past few decades of state and federal encouragement of these tools have paid off.  We find some progress—but also some backsliding since the drought of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

That earlier drought jump-started California’s water market, thanks in large part to direct state actions. In the late 1980s, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) began purchasing water from a few irrigation districts to make it available to wildlife refuges and State Water Project contractors.

By 1991, when faced with the prospect of draconian across-the-board rationing, DWR launched the state’s first drought water bank, a large-scale brokering program that acquired water from numerous willing sellers and resold it to those facing high costs from shortages.  When the rains returned, the water market continued to grow, as many local districts got comfortable trading with each other (Figure 1).

Figure 1.  The graph shows the evolution of California’s water market. Currently, about 2 million acre-feet of water trades are committed annually, with around 1.4 million acre-feet actually exchanging hands. Source: California’s Water Market, By the Numbers: Update 2012, PPIC

Today, market trades account for roughly 5 percent of all water used annually by the state’s businesses and residents. Water agencies in most counties now participate in this market. Farmers—the largest water-using sector—continue to be the primary providers. Recipients include other farmers, cities, and environmental programs supporting wildlife reserves and river flows for fish. Long-term and permanent trades—especially valuable for supporting shifts in patterns of water demand—now make up well over half of the market.

However, the market did not perform so well during the latest drought, as the graph above shows. To mitigate the drought, overall sales would have been expected to increase considerably relative to the preceding non-drought years. But our study estimates that transfers provided a total of only 500,000 to 600,000 acre-feet in drought-oriented supplies between 2007 and 2010, above and beyond transfers that would likely have occurred anyway (Figure 2).

Figure 2. The slowing market was unable to provide much drought relief from 2007 to 2010 — just 500,000 – 600,000 acre-feet. Source: PPIC, 2012

The market slowdown began in the early 2000s. This slowdown reflects a variety of infrastructure and institutional constraints, including more complicated approval procedures and pumping restrictions introduced in 2007 to protect endangered native fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a key water conveyance hub.

Groundwater banking did a better job mitigating the drought.  For some time now, water agencies in several parts of the state have been recharging aquifers with surface water for local users.  Our study focused on a new form of banking in which local groundwater managers store water for parties located elsewhere in the same county or in other regions.

From the mid-1990s to 2006, these water banks—located in Kern County and Southern California— had built up reserves of nearly 3.4 million acre-feet.  Between 2007 and 2010, they returned nearly 1.9 million acre-feet to their depositors, considerably more than the drought-related water market sales (Figure 3). Groundwater storage likely played an even greater role than these numbers suggest:  DWR estimates that nearly 90 local agencies have been storing water in their local aquifers.

Figure 3. New groundwater banks were useful in the 2007-2010 drought. Withdrawals totaled 1.9 million acre-feet — three times the volume that was traded in the same period. Source: PPIC

What lessons can be drawn from this experience?  Despite its good showing, groundwater banking still faces obstacles.  More comprehensive local basin management—a common practice in Southern California and Silicon Valley—would prevent unsustainable pumping and long-term declines in groundwater levels.  Outside pressure—with a credible threat that the state would step in if local agencies fail to do so—might be the best way to proceed, ideally accompanied by positive financial incentives.

To strengthen the water market, the state needs to clarify and simplify the institutional review process, while continuing to ensure that transfers do not harm the environment or other water users.

Both marketing and banking depend on addressing infrastructure weaknesses that restrict water conveyance through the Delta. Those constraints have already limited both the market’s ability to furnish water supplies in dry years and the availability of supplies to replenish groundwater banks in wet years. Because routinizing marketing and banking transactions will require risk-taking, high-level state and federal officials should be involved, perhaps through a coordinating committee to facilitate decisions.

Attending to these and other priorities described in the report will help ensure the success of two of the state’s most critical strategies for efficiently managing its water resources.

Ellen Hanak is a senior policy fellow and Elizabeth Stryjewski is a policy associate at the Public Policy Institute of California.

Further reading

Governor’s Commission to Review California Water Rights Law. 1978. Final Report. Sacramento, CA.

Hanak, E. 2003.  Who Should Be Allowed to Sell Water in California?  Third-Party Issues and the Water Market.  Public Policy Institute of California.

Hanak, E., J. Lund, A. Dinar, B. Gray, R. Howitt, J. Mount, P. Moyle, B. Thompson. 2011. Managing California’s Water:  From Conflict to Reconciliation.  Public Policy Institute of California.

Phelps, C.E., N.Y. Moore, M.H. Graubard. 1978. Efficient Water Use in California:  Water Rights, Water Districts, and Water Transfers.  R-2386-CSA/RF. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation (report to the California State Assembly).

Tanaka, S.K., T. Zhu, J.R. Lund, R.E. Howitt, M.W. Jenkins, M. Pulido-Velazquez, M. Tauber, R.S. Ritzema, I.C. Ferreira. 2006. “Climate Warming and Water Management Adaptation for California.” Climatic Change 76(3-4): 361-387.x

How engineers see the water glass in California

AppId is over the quota AppId is over the quota  Engineering a water glass at 50 percent. Source: xkcd.com

By Jay R. Lund

Depending on your outlook, the proverbial glass of water is either half full or half empty. Not so for engineers in California.

Civil engineer: The glass is too big.

Flood control engineer: The glass should be 50 percent bigger.

Army Corps levee engineer: The glass should be 50 percent thicker.

Mexicali Valley water engineer: If your glass leaks, don’t fix it.

Delta levee engineer: Why is water rising on the outside of my glass?

Dutch levee engineer: The water should be kept in a pitcher.

Southern California water engineer: Can we get another pitcher?

Northern California water engineer: Who took half my water?

Consulting engineer: How much water would you like?

Delta environmental engineer: Don’t drink the water.

Water reuse engineer: Someone else drank from this glass.

Academic engineer: I don’t have a glass or any water, but I’ll tell you what to do with yours.

Jay Lund is the Ray B. Krone Professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Davis, and director of the university’s Center for Watershed Sciences.

Further reading

Munroe, Randall. Glass Half Empty. xkcd.com

Hydrology of Halloween

Cure for unlikely California drought. Frank Tinsley/Mechanix Illustrated, October 1951

Of the UC Davis Center for watershed Sciences staff

If these ideas of the 1950s to resolve California water problems scare you, we do not know what will be. Happy halloween!

The Cornell Plan
Sidney Cornell, a civil engineer from Los Angeles, circulated an idea for the transport of water in Northern California to the arid southern end of the State without any problems and the costs of long channels, pipes and pumps. He proposed to build giant cannons to shoot water into the air for the capture of the km, as shown in a Mechanix illustrated 1951.

Perhaps the time for idea of Cornell. Why spend billions of dollars for the water in the direction of the tunnel under the Delta South when we cannot simply take our way to solve the problem? Just one of these guns of gargantuan Cornell plant intakes from the South to the Sacramento River Delta near the Woods, who could use the tourist attraction. Point the gun to Clifton Court forebay upstream and fire away!

Call the Air Super-Peripheral, or Super Cap gun.

Imagine a column of water produced in top Valley and falling to say cubic 9,000 feet per second. Pretty scary, especially if the barrel is a bit off target and Tracy pipes.
 

The Reber Plan
Unlike Cornell pipe-less dreams, plan John Reber to quench the thirst of the actually took flight - for a spell. Reber, a theatre producer who himself engineer, advertising of the dams on the San Francisco Bay to capture and store the flow of fresh water for the export to the Southern California by channel, not guns.

A dam would be between Richmond and Marin County and another bridge of San Francisco and Oakland, creating two giant fresh water lakes. The dams would be roads that could carry up to 32 lanes of traffic, as well as train tracks. Reber also sought to reduce the Bay with 20,000 acres of fill for development, including military bases.

KQED

Reber idea created a media buzz and enthusiasm of some members of Congress. The public works of the Senate Committee held hearings in San Francisco and then recommended the Army Corps of Engineers to build a model of the Bay to test "the Reber plan." The model of 1.5 hectares, that mimics the action of tides, currents and the mixture of fresh and salt water, showed that the Bay-Delta estuary would be destroyed. Freshwater dams would create only giant evaporation ponds.

You can watch the simulation to model Bay Visitors Center the army in Sausalito. Watch the ghost of John Reber at low tide.

The California Water Plan. State Dept resources. of Water, 1957

1957 California water plan
It is not blood stains that you see in this vision of 1957 the future California water. However, red blobs should send chills down your spine. They mean potential reservoirs. That's right, almost all of the Klamath River and most of the Trinity River systems and eel would become chains of Lakes. Regardless of the salmon.

A series of pumping stations that negated the flow South to the Sacramento Valley and in through giant pumps Delta to farms and cities in the South.

At a time of apparent unlimited growth, the State Department of water resources has developed the California Water Plan (Bulletin n ° 3) to "demonstrate that the capacity exists to meet all foreseeable water needs in all areas of the State.

"We can do it. It is engineeringly and financially viable, said William l. Berry, head of the Ministry of water resources, planning, speaking in 1956 at a Fresno public hearing on the plan. "What is more, we have to start the task - and promptly - whether California should remain the"Golden State"in what some call the"golden age"in which we enter."

The proposed California water system would be the great equalizer of the water resources, redistribute the "excess" of the North of Central California water less gifted and Southern California. But plans for the filming of the rivers of the North coast in the tanks remained just that - plans, which are today better kept in the closet, as skeletons.

References and additional reading
John Metcalfe. October 3, 2012. A look back on "Big Squirt, 1951's' Concept of cure unlikely California drought." The cities of the Atlantic.

Ron Blatman, public television KQED/KTEH. The Reber Plan: A great idea for the San Francisco Bay area.

Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Bay Bridge: bridging the Campus, not built projects.

June Morrall. November 1, 2007. Bay to the Lake: a Plan of the late 1940s have failed would have turned San Francisco Bay in two lakes. Halfmoon Bay memories.
Bay model Visitor Center, US Army Corps of Engineers and

The California Water Plan, Bulletin n ° 3. Sacramento, California. California Department of Water Resources, 1957.

The dog that didn’t bark: Unexpectedly small effects of export changes on Delta farms

AppId is over the quota AppId is over the quota  Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of Silver Blaze by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Inspector Gregory: Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?
Sherlock Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
Gregory: The dog did nothing in the night-time.
Holmes: That was the curious incident.

By Josué Medellín-Azuara and Richard Howitt, UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

California water analysts – us included – have long assumed that building a peripheral canal to carry exported water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta would significantly harm local farming. Diverting so much fresh Sacramento River water would make the Delta too salty for irrigating high-value crops, we thought.

Delta farmers have assumed as much in opposing Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to build a pair of giant tunnels beneath the Delta to transport water to the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

Yet, for all the pessimistic prognostications, no one had rigorously analyzed how a peripheral conveyance system would likely affect Delta water salinity and crop production. The forecasts were not based on formal hydrodynamic models, which can simulate the movement of water and salt under different conditions.

To remedy this, we recently ran hydrodynamic models to examine changes in water salinity, crop yields and crop revenues under various combinations of water export management and sea level rise in different parts of the Delta.

The study did not consider the specific changes in the state’s proposed Bay Delta Conservation Plan, which includes the governor’s “preferred alternative” to tunnel exported water under the Delta. The modeled tunnel operated under 1981—2000 water conditions with a capacity of 7,500 cubic feet per second – enough to transport up to 59 percent of average annual exports (4.9 million acre-feet), with the remainder continuing to be pulled through Delta channels to the export pumps.

Once we established the salinity changes in irrigation water, we used a detailed model of the Delta’s farming economy to estimate the effects of those changes on crop yields and revenues. (The model includes the role of salinity in farmers’ cropping decisions.) Finally, we ran these revenue changes through an economic model to see their effects on the Delta economy as a whole.

The result: no barking dog, as Sherlock Holmes might say.

Our study showed that the cost of salinity changes under a peripheral tunnel and a range of other conveyance scenarios would be less than 1 percent of the Delta’s total crop revenue – an estimated $2.3 million a year.

That’s a far cry (or bark) from previous estimates. A recent study for the state Delta Protection Commission put the annual revenue loss at $28 million to $54 million. Our earlier study in 2007 also had much higher estimates.

How do we account for such large cost reductions? Four factors explain the difference.

First, our study – Transitions for the Delta Economy, released earlier this year – is the first to forecast salinity levels with hydrodynamic models, which were built by fellow UC Davis researcher William Fleenor. Second, we conducted the analysis island-by-island, which enabled us to show that the islands at risk are those that grow the lowest value crops. Third, these low-value crops are the most salt-tolerant. Fourth, salinity tends to be highest in the late summer and fall, when most irrigation is finished except for relatively low-value pasture and hay.

The modeling scenarios included sea level rise, which would also affect Delta salinity and farm revenues. Many western islands that serve as barriers to sea water intrusion are subsided and expected to become permanently flooded in the coming decades.

As with the introduction of peripheral export infrastructure, Delta water interests and analysts have assumed that sea level rise would cause substantial salinity-related losses to the local farming economy. Our modeling runs, however, showed that sea level rise would have little effect on salinity during the irrigation season — even with the three-foot increase projected for 2050.

Percent change in Delta crop revenues across water quality scenarios, including sea level rise (SLR).
UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

The same holds true with the loss of the sea water barriers – namely Bradford, Brannan-Andrus, Jersey, Sherman and Twitchell islands. (Bar graph does not include this scenario.) In addition, most higher value crops are not located in the parts of the Delta that would see the highest salinity increases. Again, no barking dog.

The combined application of hydrodynamic, water quality and agro-economic modeling is a considerable improvement over past analyses, which simply assumed a particular level of salinity change and applied that to the Delta farm economy.

Improved modeling details seem unlikely to change the conclusion that salinity costs of peripheral tunnels or canals are minor, even with sea level rise.

It doesn’t take an elaborate computer modeling exercise, however, to confirm a far bigger threat to Delta farmland: its fragile network of levees. The islands have sunk well below the level of surrounding waterways, and their levees are predicted to fail — with high costs of repair and likely abandonment — causing a loss of farm acreage. This dog is barking, and it could take a bigger bite out of the Delta farm economy.

 Further reading and references

Delta Protection Commission (2012), Economic Sustainability Plan for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Fleenor, W., Hanak, E., Lund, J.R., Mount, J., 2008. Delta Hydrodynamics and Salinity Conditions. Public Policy Insititute of California, p. 32.

Hoffman, G. J. 2010. Salt Tolerance of Crops in the Southern Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Report for the California Environmental Protection Agency.

Medellin-Azuara, J., Hanak, E., Howitt, R., and Lund, J. R. (2012a). Transitions for the Delta Economy. Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco, California. (February 2012).

Suddeth, R., Mount, J., Lund, J.R., 2010. Levee Decisions and Sustainability for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science 8(2).

Van Genuchten, M.T., Hoffman, G.J., 1984. Analysis of Crop Salt Tolerance Data, In: Shainberg, I., Shalhevet, J. (Eds.), Soil Salinity under Irrigation, Processes and Management. Springer: Berlin, pp. 258-271(Ecological Studies, 251).